FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE E cm AT OR ^ram tl|f ICibrary of tl}t IGibrarg of Pnnrrtntt Slipnlogtral i>mtttar^ DS 413 .F7 1899 Foss, Cyrus David, 1834- 1910. From the Himalayas to the eauator Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015 https://archive.org/details/fromhimalayastoeOOfoss FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EOUATOR Letters, Sketches and Addresses, Giving Some Account of A TOUR IN INDIA AND MALAYSIA BY CYRUS D. FOSS, D.D., LL.D. One of the Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church NEW YORK: EATON & MAINS CINCINNATI: CURTS & JENNINGS 1899 Copyright by EATON & MAINS, J899. TO MY BELOVED WIFE, WHOSE PRESENCE WOULD HAVE MULTIPLIED MY ENJOYMENT OF THE INSPIRING SCENES I HAVE TRIED TO DEPICT, AND WHOSE HOME MESSAGES BY EVERY MAIL BROUGHT ME UNFAILING GOOD CHEER IN ALL MY WIDE WANDERINGS. PREFACE IN the year 1888 the Rev. James M. Thoburn, D.D., who had been for thirty years a mission- ary of the Methodist Episcopal Church in India, was elected " Missionary Bishop for India and Malaysia." During the two quadrenniums imme- diately succeeding his election the episcopal super- vision of our entire work in Southern Asia was left in his hands. In 1896 the General Confer- ence so changed the law of the Church as to pro- vide for a novel and specific exercise of the " co- ordinate authority," which had all along existed, " so that once in every quadrennium, and not oftener unless serious emergency arise, every mis- sion over which a missionary bishop has jurisdic- tion shall be administered conjointly by the gen- eral superintendents and the missionary bishop." Under this instruction the Board of Bishops as- signed to me the very welcome duty of an official visitation to India and Malaysia, to be made in the autumn and winter of 1897 and 1898. To my great satisfaction I found it practicable to arrange for Mrs. Foss to accompany me, and our passage was engaged for July; but the prevalence of the plague and of the famine led Bishop Thoburn and eight- een presiding elders, with whom he was meeting as a Committee on Famine Relief, to advise the 5 6 PREFACE. postponement of the visitation for a year. When, however, a letter had been received leading, some months later, to the fixing of the original time, it proved impracticable for Mrs. Foss to go. My tried and valued friend, the Rev. John F. Goucher, D.D., President of the Woman's College of Baltimore, had long desired to inspect the work in India which he had done so much to promote, and it was my great good fortune to find him will- ing to undertake the long tour. He therefore ac- companied me constantly, until our half year's journey took us entirely round the world. I could not have had at my side a more considerate and helpful traveling companion, nor a more intelligent and devoted student of missions. In these letters to my family, sketches prepared for newspapers, essays on special subjects, and public addresses, sundry repetitions were not only unavoidable, but essential. For this more perma- nent record they have been eliminated as far as practicable ; but in a few instances statements are repeated for needful explanation. Cyrus D. Foss. Philadelphia, January 17, 1899. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PACI! I. Outward Bound 1 1 II. Four Bright Hours on Sunny Seas 18 III. To the Himalayas 22 IV. Naini Tal ; the Lake of the Goddess 27 V. Back to the Plains 32 VI. A Unique Camp Meeting 35 VII. The Moguls ; their Tyrannical Rule and Splendid Architecture 41 VIII. Fifteen Hundred Miles Southward ; from Hathras to Bombay and Madras 51 IX. Woman's Work for Woman 57 X. The Woman's Foreign Missionary Society 65 XI. A New " Koh-i-Noor " 79 XII. Fifteen Hundred Miles Northward ; from Madras * to Calcutta and Lucknow 85 XIII. Conference Sketches 92 XIV. Two Pen Pictures loi XV. Central India Conference 107 XVI. Ep worth League Extraordinary 122 XVII. A Genuine Bonanza 129 XVIII. Some India Fruits 135 XIX. How our Missionaries Live 147 7 8 CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE XX. Self-support 153 XXI. In the Torrid Zone 168 XXII. Essay on Crows, Lizards, etc 177 XXIII. Burma as a Mission Field 182 XXIV. Curiosities of Oriental Travel 189 XXV. Polyglot Malaysia 198 XXVI. Homeward Bound 205 XXVII. Welcome Home 215 XXVIII. Our Most Successful Mission 233 XXIX. A Bugle Call 251 XXX. Statistics 257 Index 261 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. FACING PAGE Cyrus D. Foss frontispiece In the Heart of the Himalayas 22 Naini Tal 27 Jumna Musjid, Delhi — The Largest Mosque in the World. 43 The Taj Mahal 48 A Zenana 58 The Laying of the Corner Stone of the Orphanage at Madras 78 Faculty and Graduating Class, Theological Seminary, Bareilly 92 Bishops Foss, Joyce, and Thoburn and Dr. Goucher Before the Camera 97 J. M. Thobum 109 Epworth League Banners 124 John F. Goucher 129 The Ahway Dagohn, Rangoon, Burma — The Incompara- ble Pagoda 179 Elephant Lifting a Log 195 Elephant Piling Timber 197 Bathing Ghat, Benares 237 Burning Ghat, Benares 238 Rescued Famine Waifs 241 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR- CHAPTER I. Outward Bound. N Saturday, October 9, 1897, the good ship Kaiser Williclvi //steamed out of New York harbor, bound for Naples, bearing the Rev. John F. Goucher, D.D., and myself on a tour in which we made the circuit of the globe, reaching our homes again after six months and five days. Our voyage was very pleasant, the weather per- fect, no storm nor high wind, and scarcely a sprin- kle of rain. For four days the sea was smooth, not like the proverbial " mill pond " (I never saw the ocean quite in that mood), but smooth enough. The temperature was very mild, and either the sun or the moon beamed brightly every hour. The thermometer in our room registered from 70 to 78 degrees. We had a great treat in passing the Azores Islands on the south side, near enough to see cat- tle and men, and, of course, houses, churches, windmills, and the beautiful terraced hillsides. We passed the islands of Fayal and Pico in the morning, and St. Miguel toward evening. The 11 12 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. sea was placid, the sky clear, and the semitropical islands were covered far up the mountain sides with a luxuriant vegetation ; I almost felt that we had landed. At night we pulled away in the darkness from the last lighthouse into the great sea. We had on board five hundred steerage pas- sengers— Italians — and it was very amusing to see them at 1 1 A. M., gathered in squads of ten each round a twelve-quart pan of macaroni, twenty or thirty small boiled potatoes, two enormous loaves of bread, and great chunks of cold boiled mutton, one of the oldest men in each squad dispensing the food with studious equity — probably the best bill of fare any of them had had for many months. We were called to our meals, having been noti- fied of them thirty minutes in advance by the notes of a very fine cornet; and an excellent band played at dinner as many pieces as there were courses, and gave two concerts daily on deck. On both Sunday mornings we were wakened by delicious German hymn tunes played by the band, the first of all being " Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott." Between Gibraltar and Naples we had one of the most glorious sunsets I have ever seen. We had just passed near to the island of Sardinia, and were twenty miles away at sunset, gliding under a faultlessly blue sky over a deeper blue sea. The broad disk of the sun covered fully half the range of the distant mountains, and was twice as broad as the height of the highest peak. OUTWARD BOUND. 13 At Gibraltar we had four hours for gUmpses of the world's greatest military stronghold, and at Rome a full day for careful inspection of a fortress which has to do with the fortunes of an empire far grander and more enduring than Victoria's. The records of the last day may show the Methodist Episcopal Mission House in the vaunted " Eternal City " to have been the source of influences vaster, and immeasurably more potent as well as benefi- cent, than those of Gibraltar. We were delighted to find a building so large, fine, solid, commodious, admirably planned, excel- lently located, adapted to so many uses, absolutely fireproof, and erected at so moderate a cost. It covers a lot 93x155 feet, and is five stories high above the basement. It contains a beautiful chapel for Italian services, holding about five hundred people, with Sunday school and Epworth League rooms adjacent ; a chapel for services in English, half as large ; recitation rooms, dormitories, and living rooms for a boys' college of sixty students, and like accommodations for a theological school of twenty students ; suites of apartments for six professors, pastors, and teachers and their families, and three other small suites of rooms for rent ; a large printing room and a gymnasium. The cost of this great col- lection of properties, exclusive of interest on money borrowed during the course of the work, was $199,- 245.08. Dr. Goucher agrees with me in the opin- ion that in New York such a property could not be secured for less than twice this amount of money. 14 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. We congratulate the Rev. William Burt, D.D., who inaugurated and carried through this great enterprise, and the Church which now has such admirable provision for our needs in Italy, and has made so eloquent a proclamation that we are in Rome to stay. Steamship Egypt, near Port Said, \ Wednesday, October 27. f Early last Saturday morning we left Rome for a fourteen hours' journey to Brindisi, expecting to sail thence on Sunday for Bombay by the Peninsular and Oriental line. It seemed strange that such a great line of British steamers should arrange for their start to India, connecting with fast express trains from London and Paris, on Sunday, and on no other day. We were delayed by the train, and early Monday morning the eight-thousand-ton ship, on her maiden voyage from London to Bombay, pushed out again on the greatest of historic seas. We thought, of course, of the Roman triremes, and of that world-conquering empire which " made the Mediterranean a Roman lake." We passed Greece in the night, and, skirting the coast of Crete next day, were in two days and a half brought to this our first Egyptian port. Suez Canal, near Suez, Egypt, ) Thursday noon, October 28. j We reached Port Said yesterday, at 5 P. M., and went ashore and mixed with the motley, clamorous OUTWARD BOUND. 15 crowd in the oriental town. Our great steamer took in twelve hundred tons of coal, the portholes and saloons being tightly closed to keep out the dense clouds of coal dust. Sleeping, or even breathing, was almost an impossibility in our cabin, so we re- mained on deck until almost i A. M., when the steamer started and the portholes were opened. This vessel has to pay a toll of about $15,000 every time it passes through the canal, the toll being computed at eight shillings a ton for the tonnage of the vessel, and about $1.80 for each passenger. The captain, who is a bright, well-informed man, seemed to take quite a fancy to Dr. Goucher and myself, and several times came and conversed with us, al- though he had five hundred and ten passengers to look after. He told us many interesting things about the canal; among the rest that in digging it the bricked bottom of an old ship canal built in the time of Moses was found, and that Cleopatra doubtless sailed through there. He also told us that two famous English engineers, one a son of the great Stephenson, after careful surveys, re- ported to the British government that there was a difference of two feet between the levels of the Mediterranean and the Red Seas, so that a canal could not possibly be constructed without locks ; which false report cost the government many mil- lions of pounds. He has been a captain of vessels of this company for twenty-four years, passing to and fro from the freezing waters of Great Britain to the changeable Mediterranean and the hot Red 2 16 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. Sea and Indian Ocean all these years. What a life to lead ! The Red Sea is proverbially hot. We found it very pleasant for two days and torrid the other two. The officers were all in white suits, and everybody else in the thinnest clothes they had. Early in the morning many gentlemen would take their baths and then come up on deck barefoot, with nothing on but pyjamas, and sit and smoke their pipes until near breakfast at nine o'clock. There was generally a fine breeze on deck, and great punkahs over all the tables were briskly pulled during meals. Indian Ocean, Tuesday, November 2. The last three days have been very hot ; barely comfortable in the strong breeze on deck ; but every cabin is a " sweat box." We had an odd incident at Aden ; through somebody's blunder one of the mail bags was not put off there, al- though we stopped five hours ; and the great eight thousand ton ship, with her cargo of one thousand lives, had to put back several miles to deliver that portion of " her majesty's mails," including one home letter of mine. We reached Bombay — after a journey of just four weeks — at 2 A. M. on Saturday, November 6, and, at 9 A. M., after sundry very leisurely arrange- ments had been completed were taken in a small steamer to the wharf, where we were most cordially welcomed by Bishop and Mrs. Thoburn and a considerable number of our missionaries and native OUTWARD BOUND. 17 pastors, who had been waiting there two hours to greet us. As the guests of Bishop Thoburn we at once began " JiigJi life " in India, his apartments being up forty-five steps and on top of a church. In the evening we enjoyed an informal reception of all our missionaries in and about Bombay, with some from distant places. It was delightful to talk and sing and pray with Americans, Christians, Protes- tants, Methodists. 18 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. CHAPTER II. Four Bright Hours on Sunny Seas. IT is not to be supposed that only four bright hours gleamed forth amid storms during my two voyages of twelve days each, from New York to Naples and from Brindisi to Bombay. So far from this, there has been no storm worth naming ; the seas have been smooth enough and the skies bright enough to delight any reasonable anticipation, and the breezes soft and exhilarating almost every hour. The Indian Ocean especially, which mon- soons sometimes lash into fury, has been faultlessly serene the whole five days of my crossing, and the immense vault which bends above it has been flecked with many-hued, far-away clouds by day, and glorified at night by the crescent moon and the oriental splendors of her retinue. Moreover, if the weather had been of the worst, no sensitive mind could fail of lively interest in passing between the Pillars of Hercules, in sight of Vesuvius, under the dome of St. Peter's, across the tracks of Paul and Moses, of the Caesars and the Ptolemies, and amid the ruins of those splendid old civilizations which, in perishing, gave place to the new and imperish- able civilization whose Morning Star arose at Beth- lehem. The " Four Bright Hours " especially signalized FOUR BRIGHT HOURS ON SUNNY SEAS. 19 in my memory were made possible by the recent progress of that ever-ascending Star, and added luster to the marvelous brightness of the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. They were passed on dif- ferent days in a secluded corner of the great dining room of the steamship Egypt, in " conversations " on missions, chiefly those in India. We had among our five hundred and ten passen- gers, besides four oriental princes and princesses and a maharajah, five British lords and thirty-six missionaries, also five special friends of missions going out for missionary observation and labor. Among the latter were Lord and Lady Kinnaird and a daughter of the famous philanthropist and parliamentary leader, Samuel Morley. Lord Kin- naird is a Scotchman and a Presbyterian, who was deeply impressed by the early evangelical work of Dwight L. Moody and of Henry Drummond. He early sought the acquaintance of Dr. Goucher and myself, and we were impressed by his deep and intelligent interest in the progress of spiritual re- ligion and his zeal in missionary work, especially in that of the Zenana, Bible, and Medical Mission, a union society of which he is the treasurer, and which was founded by Lady Kinnaird's mother. The " conversations " were arranged for at the suggestion of Dr. Goucher, and he and Lord Kin- naird proposed the principal topics. They were attended from day to day by more than thirty persons, representing the missions of fourteen dif- ferent societies, as follows : Baptist, Zenana, " The 20 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. Church," Propagation of the Gospel, Methodist Episcopal, Missionary Alliance, Friends, Keswick Mission, Soldiers' Christian Association, Young Men's Christian Association, Young Women's Christian Association, Cathedral Mission to Cal- cutta, Cambridge University Mission to Delhi, and Presbyterian. Lord Kinnaird presided with perfect ease and simplicity of manner, and skillfully drew out differ- ing opinions. The lady missionaries, who were largely in the majority, did not speak so readily as their American sisters would have done ; but on the second day the zenana work elicited from a few of them very interesting facts and opinions based on large experience. High Church Cambridge University " priests," Baptists, Methodists, Presby- terians, Friends, etc., seemed to forget their differ- ences and to speak out of sincere conviction on the immensely difficult and slowly evolving problem of how to bring India to Christ. One young Angli- can clergyman told of his painful disenchantment. He had seen in England pictures of a missionary sitting under a tree with a Bible in his hand and a native holding an umbrella over his head as he preached the Gospel to an intent and tearful mul- titude. He had thought that would be very nice; but he had been in India three years, and had found it very different. The chief topics discussed were : " The Develop- ment of a Native Ministry and of Self-supporting Churches," " The Fundamental Character of Edu- FOUR BRIGHT HOURS ON SUNNY SEAS. 21 cation," " A Few Strong Centers vs. Many Smaller Ones," " The Importance, Difficulties, and Encour- agements of Work among Women and Girls," " Zenana Work," " How to Meet the Criticism that ' So-called Christian Servants are the Worst of All Servants,' " " Why so Many Travelers Decry Missions," and " The Employment of Heathen Teachers in Christian Schools." Dr. Goucher and I were invited to open im- portant discussions, and it fell to my lot to speak the closing words and to lead in prayer. I gladly welcomed the opportunity to speak of the rela- tions between England and America, and of the increasing indications of answer to the Saviour's prayer, " That they may be one, even as we are one ; . . . that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them as thou hast loved me." In the season of prayer which fol- lowed four or five took part audibly, and many hearts were touched by pentecostal fire. Steamship Egypt, near Bombay. 22 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. CHAPTER III. To the Himalayas. Naini Tal, November 15, 1897. SINCE I reached India I have seen so many strange sights and heard so many novel sounds, and had so many and such various thoughts and emotions, and traveled so many miles, that I have not been able to command the time for such correspondence as could possibly give any just im- pression of these things. I must now attempt, however imperfectly, to give a little notion of some of the multitudes of things to which I thus refer. After spending four days in Bombay, where we were delightfully entertained at the house of Bishop Thoburn, Dr. Goucher and I started under Bishop Thoburn's care for one of our most northern sta- tions, namely, Naini Tal. On the way, at several railroad stations, we were met by the native pas- tors and some of our American missionaries, who brought to the stations large numbers of native converts, and in some instances whole schools of boys and girls, who were arranged in lines on the platforms, and who sang to us their native hymns very sweetly. All seemed very much delighted to see the American strangers. The northward jour- ney of three days and nights was broken by a stop of six hours at Lucknow and a night at Bareilly. TO THE HIMALAYAS. 23 Before leaving Bombay we provided ourselves with our own " beds," so called, which are simply very thick comfortables, to be folded double on the railway car seats, and sometimes on cots in private houses. We carried also our own pillows, sheets, and coverlets. The railway cars are peculiar from our American point of view. They are divided into compart- ments, each for six or eight persons. The seats run lengthwise, and have swinging berths above them, so that four persons can sleep very comfortably in a compartment. The first-class fare is about two and a half cents a mile, second class one half as much, and third class about one sixth as much. At Khandwa we were met by Presiding Elder Johnson and Pastor Vardon, both American mis- sionaries, whose work is in the midst of one of the worst of the famine regions. We saw quite a num- ber of " famine children," as they are called. Many who came with them to our schools had died, but these had recovered their health. The shipload of corn, wheat, and beans brought from San Fran- cisco by the whaleback steamer City of Everett, which steamer we had seen at Port Said on its homeward voyage, was very highly appreciated throughout India, not only by the natives who re- ceived the supplies, but by the missionaries and by many government officers. I heard facts which led me to think that the fourteen tons of grain distributed among Christians alone in the Rev. Mr. Vardon's circuit were a real evangel to them, 24 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. and gave them such a sense of American sympathy and helpfuhiess as scarce anything else could have done ; and also that multitudes of heathen who shared in the supplies from that ship and were struck by the novel form of the grain which they were told came from America, got a notion that Jesus, whom the Americans worship, is the Great Giver. All classes and castes to some extent learned that lesson from that good ship. In the streets one finds a strange conglomera- tion of vehicles — queer-looking carriages drawn by horses ; great carts drawn by bullocks, which often trot rapidly through the streets ; long lines of camels, the halter of each tied to the tail of the one ahead ; and, in some places, two or four coolies carrying chairs containing European and American men and women. Many of the streets are so nar- row that the people have to jostle each other in passing. I wish it were possible for me to draw vivid pic- tures of the people, the homes and bazaars, the mosques and temples and half-ruined palaces, and the fauna and flora of this unique and wonderful country. I am not sure that anything has arrested my attention more than the crows and monkeys, which are among the most familiar friends (and enemies) of the people — impudent, thievish, funny, omnipresent. I have heard a multitude of stories of the annoyance they cause by their very quick and skillful thieving. They will snatch food out of plates being carried to the table, and are ready to TO THE HIMALAYAS. 25 seize anything one is bringing home from market, unless it be kept covered. One of our missionary ladies told me that a hawk flew down and seized a piece of bread and butter out of her little child's hand and bit his finger, and that another took from her a chicken which she was preparing for the pot. The Hindus hold monkeys sacred and will not kill them. Because of this superstition the government does not (in some regions) dare to kill plague-stricken monkeys, but conveys them far from cities and villages, and turns them loose in the jungle. From the terminus of the railroad we rode and drove over fifteen miles up the mountain side to this charming place, the gem of mountain resorts, Naini Tal. In the evening we attended the distri- bution of prizes at Miss Easton's very successful girls' school, which has one hundred and one board- ers. Of course I had to make a little speech. On Saturday I presided at the District Conference, and then rode a mile and a half up the splendid, steep mountain path to the Boys' High School. The District Conference is a great rallying place for native preachers, teachers, and Christian peo- ple generally. The services have been exceedingly interesting, and have been occasions of great spir- itual refreshment. On Saturday evening we ate a " native dinner " with the brethren, over two hun- dred in number. They all sat on the floor of the church and ate from brass plates, with their fin- gers, vast quantities of rice with a little meat 26 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. shredded in it, and that was all. Dr. Goucher and 1 addressed the Conference at the close of its ses- sion this morning, and were listened to with eager and delighted attention. We ourselves had been deeply moved not only by the services of the Con- ference, but by the cablegram of greeting from the General Missionary Committee (in session in Phila- delphia), received on Friday and answered on Sat- urday. That message seemed to bring our country, our home Church, and our common Lord, very near to us. It was in these words : " Brothers Foss, Thoburn, and Goucher : " We are one with you in spirit, prayers, and work. " [Signed] NiNDE, for the Committee." Our answer ran thus : " Naini Tal, India, November 13. " General Committee : Greeting. Exod. John 4. 35, 36. " [Signed] Foss, Thoburn, Goucher." The passages referred to were the following : And the Lord said unto Moses, Wherefore criest thou unto me? speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward. Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest ? behold, I say unto you. Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields ; for they are white already to harvest. And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal : that both he that soweth and he that reap- eth may rejoice together. NAINI TAL, THE LAKE OF THE GODDESS. 27 CHAPTER IV. Naini Tal, the Lake of the Goddess. AINI TAL will always be remembered as the 1 N second birthplace of Methodism in India. Rev. Dr. William Butler, the founder of our mis- sions here, scattered the first handful of seed in Bareilly ; but the great Indian mutiny in 1857 destroyed every vestige of that planting, and the next year he began again at Naini Tal — a station among the foothills of the Himalayas securely held by British arms, sixty-two hundred feet above the sea level, and a most charming summer resort for missionaries, teachers, and British army officers and civilians. I know no place in America which even re- motely suggests the unique and marvelous beau- ties and grandeurs of Naini Tal, except Lake Mohonk, which answers only as a faint miniature. Naini Tal, the lake of the goddess Naini, is a mile in length and a quarter of a mile in width — many times larger than Lake Mohonk, twice as green, and surrounded by very steep, densely wooded hills from one thousand to fifteen hundred feet high, the sides of which are gemmed by numerous fine residences, schools, churches, and government build- ings. This lovely mountain city cannot be reached by a carriage ; and there is not a carriage nor a cart 28 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. moving on its highways. It is reached, and people travel through it, -with, ponies and dandies — that is, peculiar chairs swung between poles and carried on the shoulders of coolies, two or four at a time according to the weight of their load, and replaced by relays every three or four minutes. On one oc- casion a team of eight coolies carried me to and from church, a distance of two and a half miles in all, for four cents each. Naini Tal is distant from Kathgodam, the terminus of the railroad, fifteen miles, twelve of which are traveled in tongas — that is, queer little two-wheeled carts for four passengers sitting back to back, with their baggage strapped on over the wheels — and the last three mles up a steep, well-built, zigzag mountain path on ponies or in dandies. The views in ascending the tortuous mountain defile are most inspiring, and increasingly so as one nears the lake. One of the great glories of the region is the view of " the snows," as the Himalayas are almost universally termed, Himalaya meaning " the abode of snow." From an elevation a thousand feet above the lake I had the great good fortune to get the view of the stupendous range in its perfection for an hour at sunset, and the next morning for another hour at sunrise. The outlook took in more than a quarter of the whole circle of the hori- zon. Eight or nine vast billows of lower moun- tain ranges stretched between me and the majestic range of the Himalayas, which are often spoken of as " the roof of the world." They were from forty NAINI TAL, THE LAKE OF THE GODDESS. 29 to a hundred miles distant. Sixty-three peaks of the range, clad in spotless ermine, as the golden sunset left them, seemed to turn, one by one, into gray heaps of frozen ashes, out of which the next morning the returning sun gave them glorious resurrection. For those two hours I have no words. They cannot be repeated for me else- where on the earth. I could only lift my heart and mutely say, " Thy righteousness is like the great mountains." The highest mountain in sight, Nunda Devi, is twenty-five thousand seven hundred feet high ; and probably no peak in the sixty-three I counted is less than twenty thousand feet. Beside Nunda Devi I could see the Pindar glacier, out of which bursts one of the chief fountains of the Ganges. On my descent I saw the fountain head of a grander river, whose first spring burst forth at NainiTal some forty years ago, when in God's name William Butler stretched forth the rod of faith and smote the rock ; and lo ! India Methodism. The rill has become a river, and for four days I watched its steady flow. At one end of the lake is our English-speaking church ; at the other our native church and school, our mission compound, containing very complete residences for two missionaries, and a sanitarium ; and on the two sides, far up on the cliffs, two schools, one for girls and one for boys. Surely this gem of the Himalayas is no longer the lake of the goddess Naini, but Wesley Lake. Bishop Thoburn had thoughtfully arranged that 30 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. on leaving Bombay I should proceed directly to Naini Tal, and have my first view of our native work at the place where it began. That work can be studied best not at the Annual Conferences, but at the District Conferences; and one of the largest and best of these had been summoned to meet there. The District Conference really originated in India as a manifest necessity of our work there, and had been in successful operation years before it had a place in the legislation of the Church. The attendance was large, the roll of actual mem- bers of the body numbering over fifty, including presiding elders, heads of circuits, local deacons and preachers, teachers, Bible women, and other helpers. At the District Conferences it is always expected not only that the business of the district and of the circuits shall be thoroughly inspected, and the giving and renewing of licenses very care- fully attended to, but that there shall be a season of great spiritual refreshment and quickening. Many hearts, I am sure, realize the presence and loving communion of the great Head of the Church. Among the constant and deeply interested atten- dants of the meeting were Miss Budden, the prin- cipal of our school work at Pithoragarh, and forty- six women and girls connected with her school and household, whom she brought nine days' march over the rough mountain paths (twelve miles being a march), every girl carrying a weight of ten pounds, and every woman twenty-five pounds. During those four days in that ever-memorable NAINI TAL, THE LAKE OF THE GODDESS. 31 spot, where I had my first opportunity for careful observation and full inquiry about our work among these natives, I got such a sense as I could not utter if I would — and until I shall have had time for "sober second thought" would not utter if I could — concerning the reality, the depth, and the wonderful scope and outlook of the educational and evangelizing work of the Methodist Episcopal Church in India. In 1880 there was an alarming landslip down the side of one of the cliffs, coming to the very margin of the lake. Several persons were buried by it. Many soldiers from the garrison and many civilians rushed to their rescue. Three hours later, without warning, there came another and vastly greater landslip, which destroyed the lives of nearly all those who had come to the rescue. It is estimated that a million tons of earth and rock burst out of the mountain side and came down into the valley and into the lake. There had just been three days of rain, during twenty-four hours of which thirty-three inches of water had fallen. The de- scending avalanche came close to our mission com- pound— one of the missionaries told me "within an inch " — and yet did not leave or take a shovel- ful of earth. Let us accept this as a good omen. The native religions in India may have their land- slides ; but Christianity, and let us hope the Methodist type of it, has come to India to stay until time shall be no more. 3 32 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. CHAPTER V. Back to the Plains. MoRADABAD, Saturday, November 20, 1897. SINCE leaving Naini Tal we have had three more days of observation — in Bareilly, Fateh- ganj, and Moradabad. In Bareilly we visited the Boys' School and Hospital, with its dispensary and medical training class, the Theological School, the Woman's Bible School, the Kindergarten, and the Orphanage, which has three hundred and fifty-one girls, of whom one hundred and fifty were " fam- ine waifs." The Woman's Bible School is for the wives of native preachers and for Bible readers and other teachers. Forty two women were present, nineteen of whom were pursuing their lessons with babies sitting on their feet, and many of them having larger children in the Kindergarten. At a similar school at Fatehganj yesterday I spoke about my wife's many years' interest in the work of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, and conveyed to them her greetings as the new presi- dent of that society. Instantly everyone sprang to her feet (the seventeen babies leaping astride the hips of their mothers) and gave Mrs. Foster a pro- found salaam, which they charged me through Dr. Parker to send to her. These scenes are indescrib- able, at least by my pen, and I wished I might have a BACK TO THE PLAINS. 33 stenographer at my beck and call every odd minute. At Bareilly I was delightfully entertained by the Rev. Dr. and Mrs. Scott. In our first evening's conversation Dr. Scott told me that venomous ser- pents had been killed in every room in his house ; that his wife had twice been bitten by scorpions ; that he never thought of putting his feet on the floor when he got out of bed until he had first put on his slippers, etc., etc. ; but that these unwelcome intruders were then supposed to be in winter quar- ters. I slept soundly, and the next morning Mrs. Scott told me that she came into the parlor just in time to prevent a large goat from walking into my room before I was up. Queer companions ! Sunday afternoon. I preached this morning at eight o'clock, through an interpreter, and had good attention, but found it a very awkward way to speak. There was a very large congregation, including several Mohammed- ans and high-caste Hindus, some of whom were government officers. At half past ten last night I was wakened by an earthquake, which shook my bed three times very distinctly. In the morning everyone was talking about it, and we now almost fear to hear from Calcutta and other cities. The lady in charge of our girls' school in this place is highly esteemed for her excellent work, as are also the pastor and his wife. I find that many missionaries' wives are constantly busy with 34 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. religious work, and are very useful. It is quite the custom for the bishop, in reading the appointments of the lady teachers at the Conference, to read also appointments for all the missionaries' wives. No words which I could frame, even if I were to write a large book, could express the sense which these visitations of the last three weeks have brought me of the reality, the depth, and the vast and wonilcrful scope of the missionary work which our Church has already done in India; and yet my observations have only just begun. The school work, running through all grades from the very humblest primary village school to the theo- logical seminary at Bareilly, has very deeply im- pressed me. We have 1,249 schools of all grades, with 32,243 pupils. Wc have 77,963 communicants in the churches and 83,229 Sunday school scholars. I have seen many of the converts, and many of the children and youth of the schools, and the young men of the Theological School. I have heard their singing and their prayers, and have heard statements concerning their experience in Christian life, carefully given by many of the mis- sionaries, and am persuaded that Christianity and Methodism are imperishably planted in India. A UNIQUE CAMP MEETING. 35 CHAPTER VI. A Unique Camp Meetingf. Hatiiras, November 27, 1897. IN company with Dr. Gouclier and Bishop Tho- burn, I spent four days at the Hathras mehi, or camp meeting, in northern India. At the station we found a Hne of our native Christians and of our children from the schools, with a few of our Ameri- can missionaries at the head of the line, drawn up on each side of a path a third of a mile in length, to receive us with a band of native music, with the sound of firecrackers and other explosives, and with lofty songs, because we came as the representatives of the great mother Church, which had made possi- ble to them the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Unique indeed were the scenes of those four days, as under the spreading banyan trees we joined these people in their religious services. We tried to get at the question whether this was really Christianity that we saw, and the genuine Methodist type of it, and whether the converts were converted. In our daily attendance at the meetings we had interpreters sitting beside us to keep us posted. On the Sabbath morning several of the recent converts were baptized. There was among them an old, gray-haired man who for many years had been a fakir, but had forsaken his idolatry, and 36 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. was sitting at the feet of Jesus. When I was about to administer the rite of holy baptism to him, after he had been closely questioned by Bishop Thoburn, the old man, as his last break from idol- atry, took off his rosary and cast it down at my feet, as though to say, " My heathenism is at an end ; tell my friends in America that my only trust is in the precious blood of the Lamb." I prize this fine rosary not only because of its intrinsic value, but because of its associations with the religious superstition of its pagan owner almost from his boyhood. His name had been Bharat Das (Fight- ing Servant), but he had it changed to Krisht Bal Das (Strong Servant of Christ). My brother, I hope to meet thee at our Master's feet ! At night we often heard the sharp bark of jack- als near by; but the camp was guarded by an ample patrol, chiefly to prevent the jackals from carrying off little children, as they sometimes do. The testimonies of the native Christians sur- prised me by their freshness, earnestness, and spir- itual power; giving certain proof of clear and ear- nest personal religious experience. One hundred and eighteen spoke in forty-six minutes, and they had time for several songs, which they sang with great spirit. These Christians had not been in the service long enough to get stereotyped speeches. I will give you some of the testimonies, not selected, but in regular order. " I know God has saved me, for, before God, my buying and selling are honest." A UNIQUE CAMP MEETING. 37 "This is always before my mind, ' If you are Christ's, walk according to his Spirit.' " Some say they were blessed here, and some say they were blessed in another place ; but as for me, Christ is blessing me all the time." " As Christ said Satan had no part in him, so I can say my possessions are in no way connected with Satan." " Christ not only gives me the orders* b)' which lam living, but he also fills my life with his peace." "I was a great sinner; but, according to his promise, now he is with me all the while." " Since coming here I have been greatly blessed ; for God has shown me things in my life that be- fore I did not know were contrary to his will, and when the Spirit showed them to me I asked Christ, and he has taken them away." " I testify that faith in Christ means life and peace." " Since coming here I have been feeding on the promises of Christ, and they have made my soul fat and strong, and I am anxious to show his power by my works." " Since coming here the Holy Spirit has let the light into my heart, and showed me snakes and dirt where I thought it was all clean. Now his love warms and cleanses it." " Christ has saved me from the slavery and stain of sin, and I know my Saviour is upon the throne in heaven." " Since Christ has come into my life, though the 33 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. outside has been rough, the inside has been peace." In the midst of ahnost constant travel and ob- servation in the interests of our missions I had found time for one day in Delhi and one in Agra. In Delhi I saw the richest and most beautiful of all the palaces of the old Moguls, and also two very famous mosques, one said to be the most spacious and imposing in the world, and the other a perfect little jewel of high art, called the Pearl Mosque. In Agra I saw a much more spacious and also really magnificent palace, and the incomparably beautiful and majestic tomb, the Taj Mahal, whose massive dome rises to the height of nearly three hundred feet. Knowing that we had just come from this most famous Taj, one of the five or six native brethren, who gave brief addresses of welcome at the mela here last evening, made a touching and really beautiful allusion to it. He remarked that the jewels of the Taj, many of which had been stolen by vandal hands, were not to be compared with the jewels before us, which are being polished for the crown of our ascended Lord, and which can never be stolen, since they are even now held in his omnipotent hand. This morning I attended four meetings here : two District Conferences, each having present about one hundred members, including presiding elders, preachers in charge, local preachers, exhorters, and teachers ; and two somewhat smaller meetings of A UNIQUE CAMP MEETING. 39 women, one presided over by my hostess and the other by a native presiding elder's wife. In both of the women's meetings, after brief addresses, I presented the letter of greeting which I had brought from the Philadelphia branch of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society. It was, of course, translated to the women. They heard it with the greatest interest, and asked me to return their loving greetings. At noon we had a very impressive love feast, at the close of which I had an interview with Prabhu Das, a native exhorter-evangelist, blind from his boyhood. He read to me very rapidly from his Bible — with his finger, of course — and sang to me in English, " Jesus Saves a Sinful Man." He then said with great emotion, " I know I am a child of God." I took his hand, and added, " So am I, and therefore we are brothers." November 29, 1897. We left Hathras this morning at 5:30, having been obliged to get up at 4:30 to get cJiota haziri, and to pack our beds and other things. We drove six miles in a very spacious and comfortable car- riage belonging to the rajah of the place, whose officer sent it with a polite note saying it was to " reach " the reverend travelers to the station. The Sabbath was passed very delightfully in camp. One of the meetings of the day of great in- terest was the temperance meeting. In this country our people are making a great point not only against 40 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. all intoxicating drinks, but against tobacco, the smoking of which is very common among the na- tives. It seems to me that nothing could better show the sincerity of their religious profession than the fact that the most of them give up smoking altogether, and in several of the Conferences this is absolutely required in order to the licensing of a local preacher. The interest of the mela culmi- nated last evening in the service of baptism and the Lord's Supper. Four adults and about thirty chil- dren were baptized. Dr. Goucher and I officiated alternately. There were very nearly two thousand Christians, including the baptized children, in the camp. At the close of the service last night Dr. Goucher and I gave brief addresses of farewell, and had abundant evidence that our visit had given great satisfaction not only to the American mis- sionaries, but to the native brethren. Our four days there were certainly a very unique experience, and gave us such an insight into the native work as we could not have obtained otherwise. I think I must give you a little notion of our daily bill of fare. Chota haziri, served in bed, consisting of strong Indian tea and toast, at 7 A. M. A good, hearty breakfast at 10. Tiffin at 2. Din- ner at 6. Tea again at 10 P. M. It seems to me that a large part of the time in India is passed in eating, and thus far I have found the food unex- pectedly good. THE MOGULS. 41 CHAPTER VII. The Mog:uIs; their Tyrannical Rule and Splendid Architecture. IN the present population of India can be seen an epitome of her past history. There, passing and repassing in the streets, are EngHshman and Mo- hammedan, Hindu and pariah, while reaching far into the past are their ancestors, who successively struggled for the mastery in that great land. First, some prehistoric tribes, whose race we have no means of determining. Then, about two thousand years before Christ, came the Aryan invaders from the region south and east of the Caspian Sea, and, entering India from the northwest, they took pos- session of it, driving out and killing many of the original inhabitants, and subjugating the rest. The descendants of those thus dispossessed are now prob- ably found among the outcasts and in some of the lowest castes of India ; their conquerors are repre- sented in the Hindu of to-day. Alexander found them ruling India when, in 327 B. C, he entered the Punjab, hoping to push on and conquer the land. He was forced by the complaints of his army to turn back and let that remain the most easterly point in his conquests. He went down the Indus and founded a city, now Hyderabad in Sindh, and sent his admiral, Nearchus, to rediscover the sea 42 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. route to India, which has been known to Europeans ever since that time. The next invaders, however, came over the same route taken by the others, by land from the Pun- jab. About the year looo A. D., Mohammedan rulers obtained a foothold in northern India, and for eight hundred years the country was governed by a line of sixty-five absolute monarchs, who, with three or four exceptions, were among the most bigoted and ferocious wretches the world has ever seen on thrones, any one of whom might have sat for the portrait given by Tom Moore : " One of that saintly, murderous brood, To carnage and the Koran given, Who think through unbelievers' blood Lies their directest path to heaven ; One who will pause and kneel unshod In the warm blood his hand hath poured, To mutter o'er some text of God Engraven on his reeking sword ; Nay, who can coolly note the line, The letters of those words divine, To which his blade, with searching art. Had sunk into his victim's heart." In the last half of the sixteenth century, just at the tiine when Elizabeth was giving her name to one of the most brilliant periods in English history, there rose in India a great Mohammedan ruler, Akbar. Between 1556 and 1605, the dates of his reign, he extended his power over a larger part of India than had ever before been under one ruler. He organized it with great thoroughness, established an exceedingly effective military system, and built roads connecting far distant parts of his empire. THE MOGULS. 43 He was the founder of the Mogul Empire, which continued at the height of its power for a century after his death, and then gradually decayed until the last of the Great Moguls fell in 1857. The reign of Akbar's son, Jahdngir, is interest- ing to us, chiefly because during it English traders established themselve.s at Surat and sent an em- bassy to the Great Mogul. He was followed by Shah Jahdn, Mogul from 1627 to 1658. It is almost impossible to believe that so much could have been crowded into the thirty years of his reign. For the greatest gifts the Moguls have left us are their wonderful buildings, and of these the most wonderful were erected by Shah Jahan. Under him the empire reached its greatest magnifi- cence. His power can be seen from the fact that he was able to collect so much money from the people for his use. It is said that the Moguls got vastly more money out of India in proportion to the number of people they ruled than does England. Shah Jahan rebuilt Delhi, which is the city most closely connected with the history of the Moguls. In it are three wonderful buildings ; the palace, the Pearl Mosque, and the Jumna Musjid, or Great Mosque. Of these the first and the last were built by Shah Jahan, the Pearl Mosque by his son. The Great Mosque is notable chiefly as being the largest mosque in the world, and as having a magnificently commanding position on a rise of ground, up which leads a most imposing series of steps. 44 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. The palace is full of interest because of the part it has played in history, and also because of what even now remains of its great magnificence. Much of the decorations has been destroyed, and many of the precious stones which were once inlaid in patterns on the walls have been carried away ; but the Decvvan Khass, or private audience room, is still very beautiful. Its many gently rounding arches and its general style call to mind, as do other specimens of Mogul buildings, the Moorish architecture in Spain, and suggest the cotmection between the Mohammedan conquerors of Spain and of India. The throne room is of white marble, exquisitely inland in gold and floral designs in red stones. In the center of the room, on a marble elevation, there stood the wonderful Peacock Throne, the cost of which is estimated by some writers to have been as much as $150,000,000. Dr. Butler thus describes it in Tlic Land of the Veda: "This wondrous work of art was ascended by steps of silver, at the summit of which rose a massive seat of pure gold, with a canopy of the same metal inlaid with jewels. The chief feature of the design was a peacock with his tail spread, the natural color being represented by pure gems. A vine also was intro- duced into the design, the leaves and fruit of which were of precious stones, whose rays were reflected from mirrors set in large pearls." Of the Great Mogul's crown Dr. Butler says : " The crown worn on the head of the Great Mogul was worthy of the Khass and the throne on which THE MOGULS. 45 he sat. It was made by the great Akbar in the fashion of that worn by the Persian kings, and was of extraordinary beauty and magnificence. It had twelve points, each surmounted by a diamond of the purest water, while the central point terminated in a single pearl of extraordinary size ; the whole, including many valuable rubies, being estimated at a cost equivalent to $10,350,000. Add one thing more, the Koh-i-noor diamond on his brow, and you have the Mogul ' in all his glory,' as he sat on the Peacock Throne in his Deewan Khass, surround- ed by Mohammedan princes, by turbaned and jew- eled rajahs, amid splendor which only the gorgeous East could furnish, and the fame of which seems to the poor courts of Europe of that day like the tales of the Arabian Nights. In 1739 Nadir Shah, the Persian invader, sacked Delhi, massacred many of the people, and carried off the Peacock Throne with pomp and ostentation so great as to show his appreciation of his prize. Later the throne was broken up and its jewels scattered. On the Deewan Khass is inscribed a Persian couplet, which Moore translates thus : "For, oh! if there be an Elysium on earth, It is this, it is this." It is a curious fact that the designer of the Peacock Throne, probably of the Taj, and possibly of Shah Jahan's other buildings, was Austin de Bordeaux, a Frenchman. He had been exiled from France and found his way to the court of Shah Jahdn, where he was held in the highest regard. 46 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. Shah Jahcin's favorite city was not Delhi, but Agra, which he greatly enlarged and which he made his capital. There, too, he built a palace, a Pearl Mosque, and a Great Mosque, but the thing which secures to him lasting gratitude is the Taj Mahal, that incomparable mausoleum, which he built some three miles from Agra for his favorite wife, Mumtaz i Mahal, and in which he lies buried beside her. It is said that twenty thousand men were engaged twenty-two years in its construction, and that it cost $60,000,000. Tourists and artists without number have tasked the powers of many languages in descriptions of the Taj, but it may be doubted whether anyone has succeeded better than Mr. Julian Hawthorne, from whose descrip- tion published in the Cosmopolitan Magazine for November, 1897, the following extracts are taken: " I came to a gate, as it is called — anywhere else it would be called a palace. It is of red stone, in- laid with white marble in arabesque designs. . . . It brought me to the garden, half a mile long and a quarter of a mile wide, through which you must pass to reach the immortal tomb. " Down the midst of the entire length of the gar- den is a stone-rimmed tank. . . . Water plants grow in it, and goldfish swim among the slender stems of the flowers. The garden is full of serried trees and beds of smiling flowers. It is a great living rectangle of deep green and bright color, flung down before the snowy splendor beyond. " But as you pass through the soaring arch of the THE MOGULS. 47 gate your eye falls upon the polished surface of the long-drawn water, and in that mirror you sec the spirit of the Taj, the dream of an enchantment too fair for this world. Do not look up yet to deter- mine whether the dream has a reality beyond it. As you pass along you feel that alabaster mighti- ness ascending skyward, but school yourself awhile before you presume to accept its celestial challenge. Halfway down the garden is a raised marble plat- form with seats upon it. . . . Take your place in the center of it, and then summon up all that is pure and lofty in your heart and lift your eyes and look. " So perfect are the proportions of the edifice and its surroundings that the Taj does not seem overlarge ; the eye compasses it in a long glance, and it takes its place forever in the soul. " The design of the building is as simple as it is matchless; as simple as a flower. Domed pavil- ions surround the central dome. The facade cen- ters in a pointed arch, the panels inlaid with pre- cious marbles, of hues like precious stones, form- ing a flowing pattern refined as the tracery of ferns. . . . Midway in the base of the arch is the door of entrance — a little rectangle of dark in the tender whiteness. It gives the finishing touch and the scale of the whole. . . . Beauty abides within the Taj as well as without, and after sitting long to gaze in the garden I traversed the remainder of the avenue . . . gained the little door — little now no longer — and passed through into the dim but clear interior. . . . 4. 48 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. "After the first few moments the dimness becomes wholly transparent, so that the smallest details of beauty are visible. It is a wondrous light, such as might dwell in the windings of a pearl shell. . . . " The Taj Mahal belongs not to the sultan and his sultana, but to all the world. When we create true beauty it ceases to be ours. It is free to all, yet sacred to each. It is the incarnation of the holiest and purest elements of human life. And India, cursed though it now be with pestilence, famine, bloodshed, and idolatry, still wears upon her tortured forehead the jewel of the world — the Taj Mahal." Shah Jahdn reminds one of that greatest of Bab- ylonian kings, Nebuchadnezzar, who rebuilt Baby- lon, but whose greatest architectural triumph was the . Hanging Gardens, which he built to please Amytis, his queen, who, living on the plains of Babylon, longed for the mountains of her early home. The Taj is the one piece of Mogul architecture which has been unharmed by time or war. The other buildings are half in ruins and despoiled of their jewels and precious metals. But it has seemed as if all men were unwilling to mar the perfect beauty of this love-shrine of Shah Jahdn, which is worthy to be compared to Dante's expres- sion of his love for Beatrice, the Divine Comedy. By tragic contrast, the sons of Shah Jahan and Mumtaz i Mahal intrigued against their father and each other; one of them, Aurangzeb, succeeded in usurping the throne and banishing Shah Jahdn. THE MOGULS. 49 In this reign the Mogul Empire reached its great- est power, but also the beginning of its decay. Aurangzcb removed the capital to Delhi, where it afterward remained, and there erected the Pearl Mosque, a building as perfect as the gem whose name it bears, small, but faultless in detail. The construction of roads, the military despot- ism, the oppressive taxation, the public buildings of the Moguls, all suggest the Roman Empire in its grandeur. Like it, the empire of the Moguls fell into decay ; uprisings of outlying tribes, divisions into smaller parts under independent nabobs, the ever-increasing power of England — these and other causes conspired to render the title of Great Mogul the merest name. As the Mogul Empire declined, the British Empire grew. Portugal had control of the East India trade in the sixteenth century, but early in the seventeenth century England, like Holland, France, and Denmark, established coast trading stations in India and an East India Company. England steadily grew in wealth and power, until, in the eighteenth century, she was forced into aggressive action. The Mogul Empire had been succeeded by anarchy, and the French were a constant menace. Therefore, in 1760, England drove the French from India, and in 1 761, in the battle of Plassey, conquered Bengal. Since that time her power has been steadily in- creasing and extending, until now it includes practically all India, since the few princes, nomi- nally independent, are really subject. In 1857 the 50 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. last of the Moguls, Bahodur Shah, was active in bringing about the Great Mutiny, in which Hindus and Mohammedans made common cause against the English. In the beautiful palace built at Delhi by Shah Jahan, this last Mogul and his queen plotted against the English government. In the Decwan Khass he received his English masters with most traitorous suavity and deceit; there he issued the orders by which every Christian who could be found in Delhi was murdered with barbarity inde- scribable ; in the same room he received from the British officers his sentence of banishment as a traitor to Burma, and a few weeks later the Deewan Khass became a soldiers' hospital. FIFTEEN HUNDRED MILES SOUTHWARD. 51 CHAPTER VIII. Fifteen Hundred Miles Southward ; from Hathras to HE journey from Hathras was broken only by a 1 stop of twenty-four hours at Baroda and Bhalej — two very "busy Bs." We reached Baroda at lo P. M., had the usual long delay for coolies to get our baggage, saw before midnight a boys' school and a girls'school under the care of our missionaries, pitied the poor little children who had to be on exhibition so late, and went early the next morning, by a short railway journey, to Bhalej. There we had a very wonderful day in a camp meeting under fine banyan trees, with fourteen hundred members of our Church present, all of whom had been heathen only three years before. We baptized two hundred and twen- ty-five new converts, and declined to baptize three hundred more who offered themselves, but who had not been sufficiently instructed. The curious in- terest with which many of the people came to the platform between the services and spied around a little cottage organ, to find out where the music came from ; the wondering attention of many hun- dreds of heathen and Mohammedans, crowding on the outskirts of the audience, with rude agricul- tural implements on their shoulders ; and the unut- terably hungry look on many faces as we spoke of Bombay and Madras. Bombay, December 7. 52 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. the miracles of God's grace and love — made a pic- ture long to be remembered. Our two missionaries there ride their wide cir- cuits on camels, finding them cheaper than horses, because they can " board themselves." There I had my first camel ride, and I do not care for another. The Bombay Conference was the first held under the new arrangement of joint superintendency. Bishop Thoburn and I had agreed that we should preside in the Conferences on alternate days and at the opening sessions of alternate Conferences, and also that the one who opened any Conference should give place to the other to read the appoint- ments at its close. He courteously invited me to open this Conference. The session of the Conference was an occasion of delightful Christian fellowship between Ameri- cans, Eurasians, and full-blooded natives, of familiar social converse for which daily opportunity was afforded while we lunched in the spacious rooms of the Young Men's Christian Association near by, and of most anxious consideration of ways and means to carry forward, or at least to prevent the curtailment of an expanding work of wonderful grace, presenting urgent opportunities immensely outrunning our possibilities of supplying workers and the means to support them. Bangalore, South India, December 9. We had arranged plans to visit Poona and Hy- derabad on our way southward from Bombay to FIFTEEN HUNDRED MILES SOUTHWARD. 53 this place, but the very rapid increase of the plague at Poona had led the government to prohibit all visits to that city, and, for kindred reasons, we would have risked a two weeks' quarantine at Hy- derabad had we gone there. So we missed these two fine, unique old capitals. We were examined by government physicians seven times during our thirty-three hours' journey from Bombay here. The last time, at the station in this place, our names and local addresses were taken. I understand a doctor is, by government order, to call on us each every day, to be sure we continue in good health. At one place where we stopped yesterday all third-class passengers — that is, all natives — are stopped off one day. They are bathed and every thread of their clothing is boiled in an immense steam boiler. There is and has been no plague in this region, nor anywhere in the regions we are to visit after this. I have no fears of it ; there have been so very few Europeans attacked by it, even where it is worst. December 12. The weather here is perfect, brilliant, dry, and the air brimful of light, with a full moon at night ; the clouds at night are the most brilliant moonlit clouds I have ever seen. It is cool enough for a winter coat mornings and evenings, and for a sum- mer coat in the afternoon. I am holding the South India Conference here alone, Bishop Thoburn having been detained at 54 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. Bombay with a cold — not a prostrating one, but such that both he and his wife thought he would probably be quarantined on the way here if he should attempt the trip. He writes he is better, and expects to meet us in Calcutta, The work of the Conference is very easy and pleasant. It is very different from the home Con- ferences in some respects. Women are here in num- bers almost equal to those of the missionaries and native teachers ; for the wives of missionaries as well as teachers sent out by the Woman's Foreign Mis- sionary Society are in attendance, and are mem- bers of the " Woman's Conference," which meets every afternoon. I visited this Conference the first day, made a brief address, and read a letter of greet- ing from the Philadelphia branch, with which the ladies were greatly pleased and deeply affected. Madras, December 16. Since leaving Bangalore we have had a pretty hard time of it. We took the cars for a forty-mile trip to Bowringpet, reaching there at eleven o'clock at night. We spent the night in a missionary's home, spreading out all our own bedding on bare cots. We are really becoming quite expert in bed making. After cJwta Jiasiri in the morning we drove eleven miles in one hour and a half to Kolar, over a very fine road lined most of the way by beautiful banyan and tamarind trees. At Kolar there is a very famous, curious, and elaborately carved Hindu temple. It is covered with elephants FIFTEEN HUNDRED MILES SOUTHWARD. 55 and the most grotesque figures of human beings and animals. We have there a large orphanage for boys and girls, and extensive missionary work in little villages round about. Our " compound " covers twenty acres, with spacious buildings for schools, orphanages, and the missionaries' homes, with fine gardens and hay fields. Our journey back to Bowringpet in the early evening was made nearly three hours long by a balky horse. These little Indian ponies seem each to have a mind of his own. For a day or two the sun has been shaded most of the time ; this change after the constantly pier- cing sunshine in India is very refreshing ; and now we are having a heavy rain, the first we have had since we left Italy. It is most welcome, and will probably prevent further famine. Our missionary friends in India are exceedingly hospitable to Dr. Goucher and myself in giving us most cordial welcome to their plain but spacious and comfortable bungalows, and also in providing us perpetual opportunities for thorough inspection of our buildings and work, and for speeches innu- merable. After leaving Bowringpet — near midnight — we made up our own " beds " (which we carry with us everywhere) in an odd-looking little railway " car- riage " (there are no "cars " here), and passed a night which was uncomfortably shortened at both ends. At 4 A. M. we were aroused near Madras for our thirty-first " medical examination " in India, on suspicion of the plague. 56 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. In this place we have had the pleasure of meet- ing several missionary workers representing other Christian Churches, one of them a former Yale student who is now the Secretary of the Students' Volunteer Movement for India and Ceylon. He is a very bright and consecrated young man, and is doing an excellent work. We have met, also, the General Secretary of the Young Men's Christian Association work for all India, who was formerly in similar work in Philadelphia, and also a mission- ary's wife who is the daughter of the famous Bap- tist missionary, Rev. Dr. Clough, of Ongole, who, in the year 1879, after marvelous revival influences in that region for many months, baptized (by im- mersion, of course, with the aid of other ministers) 2,222 heathen converts in a single day. Our bearded, barefooted, turbaned "boys" glide into and out of our rooms — never knocking — as silently as cats, anticipating all our wants. I have never seen better servants. WOMAN'S WORK FOR WOMAN. 57 CHAPTER IX. Woman's Work for Woman. ENGLAND and America are the countries of greatest freedom and opportunity for women, and tliis last quarter of the century may be called tJic period of woman's intellectual development and training in organized activity. These state- ments seem almost truisms, and yet, just as we only question for a day such marvels as the X-rays, the liquefaction of air, or telegraphing without wires, and then accept them as inevitable and nat- ural factors in the progress of the world, so we seldom stop to realize how greatly and significantly the lives of the women of to-day differ from the lives of those of the last generation. If one thinks of the women's colleges, the women's organizations, religious, sociological, civic, and political, the women entering the learned professions and occu- pations of many kinds, one realizes how wide has be- come their realization of their powers, their oppor- tunities, and their responsibilities. Increasing knowledge of the condition of women in all non-Christian lands ; recognition of how great is the debt of English and American women to Christianity ; the great devotion women always show in religious matters; the special sympathy and interest felt by Christian women for all less 58 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. favored members of their own sex — these are some of the reasons why Enghsh and American women have banded themselves in missionary organiza- tions, until now, in the United States alone, there are probably four hundred thousand members of such societies. In no country do the women more need help than in India, and particularly help given hy zvoinen, not men. The roots of the evils in the condition of women in India may be found in their seclusion and in the Hindu social customs and teachings concerning women. Most of these evils were not originally a part of the religion and customs of the Aryan inhabitants in India. The seclusion of women in zenanas was undoubtedly largely the re- sult of the Mohammedan invasion and conquest, for it was the custom of the Mohammedans to seclude their own women ; and, furthermore, the women of India were not safe from the lust of the Mohammedan conquerors without such seclusion. The effects on the women were inevitable — phys- ical ills of all sorts, because of the inactive life ; low intellectual condition, they being taught practically nothing, and having nothing in their environment of which to think, except an unvarying round of petty duties; a spiritual life which consists in the terrified worship of cruel and impure gods, and fur- nishes no food for thought, yet to which they cling with a devotion deserving a better object. The most infamous of the religious teachings are not contained in the older Brahmanistic writers. They WOMAN'S WORK FOR WOMAN. 59 are the comparatively recent additions of Hindu- ism, though hitcr Hindu writers tried to read such meanings into passages from the older sacred books. This is true of sjittceism, prohibition of widow marriage and the cruel treatment of widows, female infanticide, child marriage, polygamy, joint family life, and the teacliing that marriage is necessary to secure the immortality of a woman's soul. In the Institutions of Mann can be found such passages as these : " In childhood a female must be subject to her father ; in youth, to her husband ; when her lord is dead, to her sons. A woman must never be independent." " Though destitute of virtue, or seeking pleasure, or devoid of good qualities, yet the husband must be constantly worshiped as a god by a faithful wife. No sacrifice, no good, no fast, must be performed by a woman apart from her husband, for if a woman obeys her husband she will for this reason alone be exalted in heaven." To England is due the abolition of female infanti- cide and stittcc (the voluntary burning of a wife on her husband's funeral pile). But it is still true that a widow is the household drudge, and leads an ex- istence so dreary that it does not deserve to be called life ; that many girls are married and some are widows when between six and ten years of age ; that many men have numerous wives and more concubines ; that women are taught little except the preparation of food, the forms of worship, and the belief that woman is a low and essentially worthless creature, whose whole duty is obedience 60 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. and whose only hope in this world and the next is her husband ; that her physical ills are as poorly cared for as her mental and moral ; and that sev- eral generations of the family live together, the daughter-in-law being most oppressively subject to her mother-in-law. These conditions vary greatly in different parts of India and in different castes. Some high-caste husbands truly love their wives and daughters, care for them tenderly, and teach them to read or permit them to be taught. Some families are encouraging widow marriage. Among the lower castes the customs of seclusion and polyg- amy do not prevail, doubtless partly because of the poverty, which makes it necessary for the women to go out and work, and forbids the men the ex- pense of supporting several wives. Early in this century David Abeel, a missionary of the American Board, became convinced that women workers were necessary to reach heathen women. Accordingly, in 1834, on his way home from China, he stopped in England, and gave to English women the most vivid picture they had ever had of the condition of the women of India and China. Up to that time missionary work had been done by men, with such assistance as their wives could find time to give them. In explaining the founding of the Women's Boards, Dr. Pierson says : " The one origin of all these societies was the inaccessibility of heathen women to male mission- aries." In England David Abeel's plea resulted in the formation of the Society for Promoting WOMAN'S WORK FOR WOMAN. 61 Female Education in the East, which in 1835 sent Miss Wakefield to Calcutta. Several other socie- ties were formed in England and Scotland before American women followed their lead, although there had been in this country, during the whole century, numerous women's auxiliaries, which raised money for the church boards. In t86i, in New York city, women belonging to six different denominations founded the Union Missionary So- ciety, under the leadership of Mrs. Doremus. A few years later, when the civil war was over, American women found themselves free for greater interest in and labor for missions than ever before, and with the added training which they had gained from their organizations to furnish relief to the army during the war. Then there sprang up rap- idly in the different Churches the women's boards, which are still and increasingly carrying on the work. They all follow very similar lines, which may be in general stated as educational, medical, and evangelistic ; but these divisions overlap almost invariably. Perhaps the most characteristic work in India is in the zenanas, where the missionary gains access on the plea of teaching first em- broidery, then reading, always using the Bible as a text-book. The women learn to look forward eagerly to her visits, because of her interest in them, and because of the glimpses she brings of a new and fascinating outside world. Little by little she manages to tell them of Jesus, until often they 62 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. become Christians, either secretly or openly. It was the ability of the missionary to teach needle-work which opened the first zenana — the royal household of Siam — to an English woman in 1851, and one in Calcutta in 1855. In the boarding schools there are many Chris- tian girls, but also many heathen, who can hardly be kept long enough to learn anything, because they must marry so young, and go to their hus- bands' homes. To the day schools many wealthy Hindus and Mohammedans are now sending their daughters, as they are becoming anxious to give them an education. An important factor in the school work are the Eurasian girls — those with na- tive mothers and English fathers. They have fur- nished the greatest numbers in the colleges and medical schools which are being successfully car- ried on, but even in these institutions of higher education there are some heathen girls. The Eng- lish government so much appreciates the value of the school work that it appropriates considerable sums toward the support of many institutions owned by American societies. The mother hearts of Christian women have taken in the waifs and orphans of India, and orphanages have been built, which are filled with the children of the poor, many of them the famine waifs recently gathered in. No better means of gaining listeners for the Gos- pel has been found than the medical work, which the Methodist Episcopal Church had the honor of beginning by sending to Bareilly, in 1870, Dr. WOMAN'S WORK FOR WOMAN. 63 Clara A. Swain as the first woman medical mis- sionary. In 1889 the Countess of Dufiferin led in England in the formation of the Association for Supplying Female Medical Aid to the Women of India. Now almost all the boards support women medical missionaries ; yet among American societies ours still stands first in this work. Its peculiar value in India can be easily seen by calling- to mind the fact that a woman there can see no men but those of her immediate family, and therefore can be attended by no male physician, however ill she may be. Such treatment as she receives from the native midwives is barbarous in the extreme. The medical missionaries are wel- comed where no other missionary could gain an entrance. The accounts of the way in which they have been sent for from great distances to attend high-caste and noble women, treated like queens, and presented with magnificent gifts, sometimes even grounds and buildings for hospitals, is as in- teresting as a thrilling novel. Almost every phy- sician divides her time between working in her hospital and dispensary and visiting the sick in zenanas — often, too, being forced to be chemist and nurse, as well as physician, surgeon, and missionary. No part of the medical work appeals more deeply to our sympathies than that among the lepers. A number of hospitals have been erected, where the lives of those poor creatures are made as com- fortable as possible. In their distinctively evangelistic work the women 5 64 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THF EQUATOR. use the means necessary to reach all classes of society. They go to the heathen melas, set up booths and there sing, and then talk to any of the people who have stopped to listen. They carry on inohiilla, or, as we would say, slum work, in the cities, and try to impress even the lowest of the low with a vision of Hope, which is so foreign to the apathetic and fatalistic Hindu. They are ver- itable " circuit riders," traveling from village to village, and, like our Lord, stopping to talk with a woman at a well, or any woman anywhere. Very important are the Bible women, native Christians who have caught the Christian spirit, and learned enough of Christian doctrine to enable them to give their time to aiding the pastors in the work of instructing the recently converted and gaining more converts wherever they can. Our Church supports the greatest number of Bible women. Then there are numerous other phases of woman's work for woman — the Home for Homeless Women, the outcasts of India society ; the homes for wid- ows, among them those founded by Pundita Ramd- bai, herself a widow, who began her work in 1889; Deaconess Homes, Women's Christian Temperance Unions, bands of King's Daughters, and Women's Christian Associations ; surely a great many differ- ent paths, all leading toward the kingdom of heaven. THE WOMAN'S FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY. 65 CHAPTER X. The Woman's Foreign Missionary Society.* 'HE work of this society, which is of high im- 1 portance in all our foreign missions, is abso- lutely indispensable in a land like India, where, to so large an extent, only women can be the saviours of women. About one half of the entire work of this society is in India and Malaysia. No wonder that the simple, awful, continent-large facts concerning the deep degradation of women in India ; concern- ing the unimaginable ignorance and the nameless horrors of the harem and of the zenana ; concern- ing child marriages, which are often contracted between the ages of six and ten years, and some- times even in infancy; concerning millions of child widows, multitudes of whom were only betrothed but now never can be married, and are doomed as the bond slaves of their fathers-in-law and their mothers-in-law to lives without one ray of hope — have effectually taken hold of the heart and con- science of that sex which constitutes three fifths of the membership of the Christian Church, and whose representatives were the intensest lovers of the divine man — " last at the cross, and earliest at the grave." * I do not here attempt nny full outline of the various kinds of work done by this society, but only a brief sketch of its origin and the statement of some facts illustrative of certain forms of its beneficent activity. 66 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. Origin. It is not always possible to trace a great idea or organization back to its real genesis ; yet, doubtless, such a genesis is like that of this globe, " without form and void," until God says, " Let there be light," The Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of our Church certainly had its origin in the need of India as that need was apprehended in the sagacious minds and consecrated hearts of Dr. and Mrs. William Butler, and Dr. and Mrs. E. W. Parker. The society was organized in the Tremont Street Church, Boston, Mass., March 23, 1869, as the direct result of the fervent appeals of these devoted missionaries ; the day being so stormy that only eight women were present, including Mrs. Butler and Mrs. Parker. On the twentieth anniversary of that humble beginning there was unveiled in that church a fine memorial window of most fit and elaborate design bearing this inscription, " The Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of the Meth- odist Episcopal Church was organized in this build- ing March 23, 1869," and also the names of the eight founders, all of whom were present at the unveiling excepting Mrs. Parker, who was at her post of duty in India. Mrs. Daniel Steele read a poem, of which the following are the closing lines: " From every land and people, From every tribe and tongue, Shall silvery treble voices Join the triumphant song. They who, from darkest midnight, Bowed down with sin and shame, THE WOMAN'S FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY. 67 Lifted by these and rescued, Have trusted Jesus' name. Such, our beloved sisters, Shall your memorial be, Its splendors multiplying To all eternity." Ill the closing address of the service Dr. Butler described a "glorious vision " which he saw while resting on the empty crystal throne of the famous palace in Delhi on Dcceinbcr 20, 1857, when the last of the Mogul emperors was being tried for the murder of Christians. He then and there had vivid suggestions in his mind, not only of an orphanage for the starving little children of India, but also of a woinan's missionary society in America to send help for such orphans and to carry the Gospel into the zenanas. Bareilly Orphanage. The founding of an orphanage was one of the first enterprises of Methodist missions in India. In November, 1858, when Dr. and Mrs. Butler had been in that country only two years, they took in one feeble little girl, blind in one eye. Within two years more they had received thirteen orphans. Then, when the British government was instituting means for the temporary care of famine orphans, Dr. Butler, foreseeing the lives of shame to which such waifs were doomed, proposed the bold project of providing for one hundred and fifty girls and one hundred boys, while as yet he had no means for their shelter or support. They were quickly set 68 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. down at his door, in i860, in bullock cart loads of fifteen or twenty each, most of them half starved, and fifteen of them too far gone to be saved. This greatly enlarged work began in Lucknow, but was removed in 1862 to Bareilly, to a site hallowed by the blood of Maria Boist, a Eurasian, the first Methodist martyr in India. When the mutiny broke out, her flight was intercepted by a soldier who cut off her head. Her body was buried under a rose tree in the garden, and there stands our orphan- age to-day, her fitting monument, one of the largest and most successful institutions of its kind under our care in any land. When I visited it in Novem- ber, 1897, it was caring for 351 children, of whom about 150 were "famine waifs," and 32 of such " waifs " died of starvation after they were received, being too far gone to be nourished by any kind of food. At the Conference in Bareilly the fol- lowing January I had the great pleasure of assist- ing in the baptism of 123 little children of this or- phanage, nearly all of whom were one year before in the jaws of famine and of heathenism. I inspected the arrangements of this orphanage with care, and with the highest satisfaction. It seems to me a preeminent illustration of that " sanc- tified common sense " which characterizes in a good degree the work of the Woman's Foreign Mission- ary Society, alike in its home activities of inspira- tion, money raising, and supervision, and in its diversified foreign enterprises of rescue, conversion, education, training, and general uplifting ; as I have THE WOMAN'S FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY. 69 Studied them in Mexico, Europe, Japan, Malaysia, and India. Its arrangements are studiously adapted to prepare the girls for hfe, as they will meet its problems. The cheap, plain, one-story buildings in which they live, while furnishing the very best sani- tary arrangements and vastly more comfortable than the homes from which most of the children have come, will not unfit them for those to which many of them will return. I saw the girls grinding wheat sitting on the floor, working little stone mills two by two, such as were in use when the Saviour said, " Two women shall be grinding at the mill ; " mix- ing and baking their chapatis, cooking the rice, and doing almost all the work which girls can do in the orphanage. PllCEBE ROWE. One of the surest and readiest tests of the real character of any movement may be found in its reflex effect on its promoters. While in India, in observing with care the workers in the field, the spirit they manifested, the service they rendered, I must now say I was able to add with clear convic- tion many names to my Eleventh of Hebrews, my personal roster of the saints and heroes of the faith. One of these whom I feel free to mention because she has since gone to receive her crown, was St. Phoebe, surnamed Rowe. Her father was an Eng- lish gentleman, and her mother a Hindu. She was early converted, and came to Miss Isabella Thoburn's school in Lucknow, where, before she was twenty years of age, all the girls were converted 70 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. through her untiring efforts. She was then thrust forth into a really unique career as a soul-saver. For twenty-five years she went everywhere in north- ern India as a flaming torch. She was unequaled in the versatility of her work as a teacher, school superintendent, assistant missionary, deaconess, zenana worker, and evangelist. In this last- named work she was preeminent. Her track was a constant triumph. She went from village to village visiting heathen fairs, speaking from the steps of temples, gathering the people in huts, under trees, by the wayside, in city streets, anywhere, and with amazing persuasiveness told the glad tidings. Mul- titudes were converted, and " she probably did more than any other one person in India to lift up the common village Christian in religious living." I had seen her and heard her pathetic singing in America, and hoped to meet her at the Hathras Camp Meeting and at the Northwest India Con- ference ; but she sent her affectionate greetings, with her message that she could not forsake her much loved work. On April 13, the very day I reached my home, she was welcomed to her eternal home, where if there " is joy over one sinner that repent- eth " there must surely have been high festival that day on the arrival of a winner of so many souls. Of course I observed the work of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society in many places of which I cannot now speak. Glances at its work in one more city must suffice. We had two red-letter days far away in South India. THE WOMAN'S FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY. 71 Madras ORriiANAGE. Having been a sincere admirer and true lover of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society from its earliest infancy, I knew very well before I went to India that these sentiments would be intensified when I should observe its work in that vast empire ; and so they were. It would delight the heart of any American Christian woman to see the work in Madras. Miss Grace Stephens, who has charge of the work, is, by divine right and glad human consent, undisputed queen in her realm, which includes an orphanage, six schools, and an extensive zenana visitation. On our first morning in Madras she invited Dr. Goucher and myself to her too crowded home to meet her fellow-workers and a few schol- ars from each of the schools. We had had but slight snatches of sleep, having taken a midnight train only to be waked up at 4 A. M. for our thirty- third " medical examination" on suspicion of the plague. On our early arrival we were met at the station by a number of our missionaries and welcomed to the delightful hospitality of the home of Rev. Dr. and Mrs. A. W. Rudisill. First, at 7 A. M., as all well regulated foreign residents and tourists in India do, we partook of cJiota Jiaziri — tea, with toast and a little fruit. Then we tried to recover some of our lost sleep. In the midst of that laud- able endeavor Miss Stephens's note of invitation was handed in. Of course we went. 72 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR, She had brought together the teachers from her six schools and a few scholars from each, and in two hours she gave us, in great variety, specimens of their surprising proficiency. There were chil- dren from the ranks of the poorest of the poor, and large classes of high-caste girls. The singing would have pleased Mr. Wesley, for all sang "lustily." Possibly the language requires peculiar movements of the vocal organs, but I never saw children open their mouths so wide or work their tongues up and down so like clappers. " Lady Henry Somerset " was there — a very dark-skinned child with gleaming black eyes, five years old. When she first came in, at the age of three and a half, she missed her gods, and for some time inquired for them and wished to offer them a portion of her food ; but at length she came to like Jesus better than her gods because he does not require any of her rice. In that humble missionary home we saw forty dusky little maidens of the higher castes of that city, sent at good prices for tuition to this school, because it is the best school to be found in Madras; and those little maidens were dressed in the finest silks that India could produce ; and jewels — they had jewels in the tops of their ears and in the bot- toms of their ears ; they had them in their noses ; they had them on all the joints of their fingers and even on their thumbs, on their wrists and on their elbows and on their ankles and on their toes, so that they fairly jingled with jewels whenever they THE WOMAN'S FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY. 73 Stirred ; and they stirred a great deal, because they went through some very striking cahsthenics and some very Hvcly singing. Beside these, and some- what younger, were perhaps twenty httle girls without a jewel, in the plainest clothing — waifs of society, picked up by the saints of the living God, out of the dust of heathenism and out of the deep- est poverty — trained in the orphanage and brought to the knowledge of the blessed Christ. The central figure in that company — no, I must not finish that sentence ; we knew the unseen Christ was there, for " did not our hearts burn within us?" The central z/w/M' figure was Sooboo- nagam Ammal, a very rich, high-caste Brahman woman whom woman's truest Friend and Lover had captured, won, transformed, and glorified ; she had been taught of Jesus in the zenana, until she wanted to come to him ; but how could she break away, and have her death celebrated by her friends (as it was celebrated afterward)? But three years ago she came to Miss Stephens, on Christmas Day, cast herself down at her feet, and said, " I am your Christmas present;" and from that hour she had broken utterly away from all her old connections. I saw her again and again, with no jewels, going forth daily into the zenana, and to the scrubbing of floors and the humblest of work — a true, noble, consecrated saint — bound to get to the bottom of society, and if she can, also to the top of it, and to be a faithful missionary among her own people. Her touching story, beautifully written by Miss 74 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. Stephens, ought to be published in every land and language. I saw also a zenana woman who, until that day, had never seen the face of a white man — had seen no man's face near at hand excepting the face of her husband and sons and of the servants about her house ; but having been converted some years ago, in a quiet way in the zenana, and having learned to love Jesus, she at last persuaded her husband (hav- ing laid by all her jewels) to let her come to that house, and see the little children, and hear them sing, and see these American strangers. She had holes in her ears almost as big as a copper cent — the lower lobe being as large as the upper, to hang large jewels there to please the eyes of her husband and her sons. She sat there like a timid fawn, hardly daring to cast her eyes around ; and yet she gathered courage, and when the meeting was almost over, with sweet voice she sang, " All the day long it is Jesus." Near the close of the exercises two dusky and wondrously bejeweled little maidens hung garlands around our necks, gave us bouquets, and sprinkled us with rose water from head to foot, until it fairly dripped from us and made us think of " Aaron's beard." .A Great "Tamasha." The laying of the foundation stone of the orphan- age on the following day was the greatest mission- ary tamasha (festival) ever witnessed in Madras. THE WOMAN'S FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY. 75 It was arranged to have the exercises occupy an hour before and an hour after nightfall. Three of the principal streets of the city approaching the compound were decked with flags for half a mile each, and illuminated at night. The grounds of the orphanage were very gaily decorated, and as night drew on were brilliantly illuminated by thou- sands of lanterns, hundreds of them suspended on two bamboo towers fifty or sixty feet high. We met in a brilliantly striped pavilion large enough to hold two thousand persons ; it was trimmed with gay tin- sel and decorated with crystal chandeliers and col- ored lights. The ground was covered with straw, and this with bright rugs; the seats were interspersed with foliage and flowering plants. To the left of the platform two fifths of the entire space was par- titioned off by a fine bamboo screen, behind which were about three hundred zenana women, clothed in gorgeous silks and decked with brilliant jewels. There were rousing songs by the six hundred and fifty Tamil children, hymns by the adult congrega- tion, addresses by Dr. Goucher and myself. Scripture readings, and prayer. In the midst of these exer- cises the zenana women quietly asked to have the curtain raised a few inches. How their eager eyes shot glances ! In the audience there were many Christians of other churches, and a considerable number of dis- tinguished native gentlemen — Hindus and Mo- hammedans, judges, professors, barristers, and merchants — all of whom gave intense attention. 76 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. They were presented to us at the close, and ex- pressed great interest in the proceedings. The pavilion with all its decorations, and the flags, towers, and lights had been provided by a native heathen gentleman, because he had come to believe that this school work which these blessed Christian women are doing is philanthropic and ex- cellent work. This high government officer, this solid merchant and man of wealth, did all this with a cheerful heart, as a kind of unconscious testimony on his own part to the way in which the kings of the world and the wealth of the world (when Isaiah's splendid visions are fulfilled) are to be brought and laid at Jesus' feet. When the service ended, our benefactor, Mr. P. Vcncatachellum, who had done all this work of preparation, including ample refreshments, leaving Miss Stephens nothing in the way of expense that day except to pay for the corner-stone itself, took us to the curtain and introduced us to his wife, who shrank and drew back as though from pollution, and yet did touch the white man's hand, as did a few others of the women there. We saw the bright-e)^ed, saintly Sooboonagam Ammal moving around among them, getting the frowns of some and the indifferent greeting of others, and the wondering looks of many. They knew what she had left, and only a few months before had had a great public meeting for the reprehension of the rich woman who could break her caste and leave her friends and have her funeral publicly celebrated by them before she died. THE WOMAN'S FOREIGN MISSIONARY SOCIETY. 77 O my friends ! do not such facts open a rift into darkest India ? For the laying of the stone Dr. Gouchcr and I were provided with trowels which had been used in repairing one of the most famous heathen temples in southern India. How they reached Madras I do not know, but they will probably see service in America. When the stone had been laid the orphanage children marched around it, and around us, singing in Tamil a song of welcome, in the chorus of which we could discern, " Goucher, Goucher," and " Bishop, Bishop." Then great yokes of glittering tinsel and garlands of roses were hung about our necks, and we were again showered with rose water. This was not the dedication of a new building, but the laying of a corner-stone on foundations level with the ground. Imagine the feelings of Queen Grace when a cablegram from America re- quired her to stop the work for lack of funds ! She obeyed, but — prayed and prayed, and talked and smiled and prayed. Of course her prayer was answered. Dr. Goucher gave her a Christmas present of $i,ooo to put up the first story, and the New York Branch of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society has undertaken to finish the building, and has named it the " Harriet Bond Skidmore Memorial," thus worthily perpetuating in India the honored name of the veteran secretary of that Branch. In response to a letter from Mrs. E. B. Stevens, 78 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. Corresponding Secretary of the Baltimore Branch of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, thank- ing him for his generous aid on this occasion, Mr. P. Vencatachellum wrote as follows : " I am much pleased to find that the little assistance I have been in position to render to the good work Miss Grace Stephens is carrying on in Madras among my fel- low-countrymen has been so highly appreciated by you, and it is extremely gratifying to find that the noble work is so heartily followed up with your good wishes and praj'ers and efforts. I shall always be glad to hear of the success of the zenana and orphanage work of your mission, and trust that my countrymen and countrywomen will gratefully avail themselves of the benefits of education, both tem- poral and spiritual, thus brought within their reach by such God-fearing and self-denying agents as Miss Grace Stephens and her earnest colaborers." i A NEW "KOH-I-NOOR. 79 CHAPTER XI. A New ^'Koh-i-noof/' THE costliest jewel in the world is the Koh-i- noor diamond, which, after many wanderings, has found its fittest resting place in the crown of Queen Victoria. Koh-i-noor means " Mountain of Light," and so may fitly describe our exceptionally well-equipped publishing house in Madras, which it was my priv- ilege to dedicate. The really wonderful story of this unique poly- glot gospel in machinery must be briefly told. The publishing house has seven distinct depart- ments, furnished with the latest and best machin- ery, all of which was made in the United States. That portion belonging to the printing department executes its work in five languages. The bindery has eight machines, made and presented by Mr. Hazelton, of Warren County, Pa. They are a combination of electrotyping and photo-engraving, and the first ever used by any publishing house, and are duplicates of the only other set in exist- ence in the world. Next comes the electrotyping department, then the photo-engraving department, which is supplied with the best machinery. This was made and largely donated by Mr. William Hol- lingsworth, of Baltimore, Md. The booklet de- partment already has orders from China and Japan. 6 80 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. The stcrcopticon department is complete. The Ahiutt Chapel is a part of the building, upon the top of which is a screen forty feet square used for the purpose of illustrating Scripture truth to the people as they pass along in the street. There is also an envelope machine, which cuts, folds, and gums envelopes with great rapidity. This great establishment finds work for one hundred employees, and is supplied with electricity for power and light. Dr. Rudisill's time is largely oc- cupied in its management. He is a practical man, and was trained in five different manufacturing establishments for a year, so that he could intelli- gently superintend the complicated work for which he has given his time and money. No one can estimate the value of this adjunct to the mission- ary work in India. Millions of pages of religious literature in various languages will be printed in and distributed from this great center of power. The public interest taken in this institution is fairly reflected in the following notice of the open- ing exercises, published in the Madras Times the next day : " Without sound of drum or waving of flag, the Methodists have planted in our city the seed of a great work, the first of its kind in the Indian empire, whereby the combined power of electricity and steam printing, engraving, photo-engraving, electrotyping, binding, and other work of the most advanced kind can be turned out. Recently the new building, which is situated next to the Eng- A NEW "KOH-I-NOOR. 81 lish warehouse on the Mount Road, was dedicated and formally opened, under the chairmanship of Bishop Foss, of the Methodist Episcopal Church. There was a short dedication service in the Alnutt Chapel, which forms a portion of the building. A fine collection of plants decorated the platform, on which the chairman and other ministers of the Meth- odist denomination took their seats, and in the midst was studded with electric lights, most taste- fully arranged. The service opened with the sing- ing of a hymn accompanied by a pianoforte, follow- ing which portions of Scripture were read in turn by the several ministers who were on the platform. " The Rev. Dr. Rudisill then said : "'Reverend Bishop, we meet this morning to dedicate and formally open the Mrs. Mary M. Rudisill Memorial Publishing House. It is a mat- ter of congratulation to all who have to do with the publishing house that so distinguished a gen- eral superintendent and bishop of our Church as yourself has most graciously consented to preside and perform the dedication ceremony. In like manner we rejoice in the Providence that has fa- vored us with the presence of one whom the whole Church recognizes as rich in gifts and grace, the Rev. John F. Goucher, D.D., President of the Woman's College of Baltimore, U. S. A., who will deliver an address, and then with his own hands let in the misty servants, which are even now with eagerness pressing against the door by which they will enter to set in motion all the machinery, and 82 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. also to liberate myriads of fiery painters who in coming years on whited walls and printed pages will bring out to view many a picture. Reverend Rishop, as agent of this publishing house, I wish to mention one name which above all others must be named as the one to whom honor is due for the existence of this publishing house. Before this name all other names fade away, undiscoverable. It is the name high over all in heaven or earth or sky — the name of Jesus. To him forever be all the glory.' " The dedication address was delivered by Dr. Goucher, of America, who dwelt at some length upon the nature and novelty of the work organized through the exertions of Dr. Rudisill, and the great boon it conferred upon India by affording facilities for printing work of the most up-to-date kind being executed on the spot without the ne- cessity of having to look to the United States or Europe for its accomplishment. " Mr. J. H. Stephens, one of the members of the Publishing House Committee of the church, ex- plained to those present the great difficulties which Dr. Rudisill had had to encounter in bringing about the existence of the new work. " The Rev. Mr. Ward, on behalf of the other Christian denominations, expressed his warm ap- preciation of the work undertaken by their Metho- dist brethren, which he was sure would be the means of spreading the Gospel more widely throughout this country. A NEW " KOH-I-NOOR. 83 " The singing of another hymn, and the bene- diction pronounced by the chairman, brought the dedication to a close, and then the motive power of the machinery was set in operation by Dr. Gouchcr, and the pubUc were afforded an oppor- tunity of viewing the works." The deHbcrate words placed in the first pages of the visitors' book do not overstate my judgment and that of the very careful observer who turned on the steam and set the wheels in motion. I wrote thus : " ' Prayer and pains, through faith in Jesus Christ, can do anything.' This saying of Eliot, the heroic apostle to the American Indians, is a most inspiring motto for Christian workers. It finds fresh illu-stration in the planting and growth of the Methodist Episcopal Publishing House in Madras, the history of which reads like romance, and is a veritable record of romantic faith and pluck, ' prayer and pains.' We find here wonderfully skillful use of nature's forces and of machinery which almost seems to think, under the direction of consecrated brains — all combining to glorify nature's Creator and man's Redeemer." And Dr. Goucher added : " I have examined with great carefulness and de- tail the Methodist Episcopal Publishing House in Madras, and have found the machinery, methods, and workmanship thoroughly up to date. In its various departments of printing, binding, electro- typing, photo-engraving, and envelope making, it 84 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. will compare favorably with similar establishments in America and Europe. I desire to express my high appreciation of the executive ability and tech- nical knowledge of the agent, Dr. A. W. Rudisill, by whose untiring energy apparently insurmount- able obstacles have been overcome, and the suc- cessful inauguration of this great enterprise has been made possible ; and of the skill of the more than one hundred native employees who have been taught by him, as well as of the comprehensive- ness and quality of the machinery. I believe this establishment will have large ministry in feeding the redeemed millions of India with healthful, spiritual literature." We had the pleasure of witnessing in this pub- lishing house the making of the first photograph by electric light ever taken in India ; it consisted of these words, " I am the Light of the World." Glorious augury ! FIFTEEN HUNDRED MILES NORTHWARD. 85 CHAPTER XII. Fifteen Hundred Miles Northward ; from Madras to Calcutta and Lucknow. Calcutta, December 30, 1897. AFTER five days in Madras, crowded full of scenes of unique interest, we took the steam- ship Paramiiiatta for this city. Madras has no natural harbor, but a great break- water of solid masonry has been built at vast ex- pense to make an artificial roadstead ; which, how- ever, furnishes such insufficient protection against storms from the southeast that, on the approach of a cyclone, all large vessels are ordered to put out to sea. Our passage out through the narrow gap be- tween the immense arms of the breakwater was very curious and interesting, and for the first half hour we had excellent views of the really fine archi- tecture of the city. Our three days' voyage on the Bay of Bengal was entirely placid and uneventful. We had on board a bride who had come from London — a five weeks' voyage — and who arrived in Calcutta one day late for her wedding, to which we had been invited and which we attended the next day, the happy bridegroom being the devoted Secretary of the Sunday School Union for all India. Our work in Calcutta includes almost every 86 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. variety of missionary work which we are carrying on anywhere in India. We have an important publishing house, which issues multitudes of books and tracts and also TJic Indian Witness, one of the very best religious newspapers published in the country, of which the Rev. J. E. Robinson, D.D., is the excellent editor. Our English-speak- ing church has a fine, large edifice, a membership of three hundred and sixty, and a very numerous and influential congregation. We have an orphan- age, a deaconess home, churches and Sunday schools for natives speaking different tongues, schools for boys and for girls — English, Eurasian, and natives — and amission for seamen. I must not fail to make special mention of the English-speak- ing boys' school, an excellent institution of high grade, whose very fine, spacious, and commodious building was the gift of Mr. Robert Laidlaw, an Englishman who by skill, pluck, and fair dealing has accumulated a large fortune in India; a devoted Christian and faithful Methodist, and a lay dele- gate to the General Conference of 1888. All honor to such penniless boys self-promoted. The Calcutta school for native boys urgently needs a similar benefactor. We found letters awaiting our arrival here, some of them giving us items of interest concerning the session of the General Missionary Committee in Philadelphia. Bishop Thoburn is with us, restored in health. Everybody tells us that strangers must go slow in India, and take things easy because of FIFTEEN HUNDRED MILES NORTHWARD. 87 the climate, and then all seem to conspire to com- pel us to go fast and take things hard ; so it must be, if we get all necessary work crowded into the short time we can be here. My days and hours are crowded overflowingly full in this city, with official duties, visitations of our schools, and slight snatches of sight-seeing. The people here make a great deal of Christ- mas. Banks and offices are closed, not only on that day, but also on the day before and the day after. We had no session of Conference and no cabinet meeting. We attended the early morning prayer meeting at half past five, led by Bishop Thoburn ; and at half past ten o'clock I preached to a very large congregation on " What think ye of Christ ? " Dr. Goucher preached at half past eight o'clock on Conference Sunday, after which I ordained two deacons, ^issisted by Bishop Thoburn. In the even- ing he ordained two elders after I had preached. The Hooghly River, one hundred and twenty miles from Calcutta to the sea, is of very difficult and dangerous navigation because of the constant shifting of the sand bars in its channel. One or two vessels are generally sunk in it each year. If a ship strikes on a bar the swift current may keel it over and sink it in an hour; but there are plenty of small boats about to take off passen- gers, and I have not heard of any loss of life. When we came up near the place of special danger, every porthole was closed so as to keep out the water in case of accident. The mild excitement 88 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. which this causes with hundreds of vessels going up and down every month does not add much tension, however, to nerves strained by famine, war, plague, earthquake, and riot. My health is excellent, and I am constantly filled with wonder and delight at the manifest signs of a great work of grace under the care of our Church here, and of a measureless opportunity for gathering converts by the ten thousand, if we only had the qualified workers necessary to care for them and train them after baptism. I feel sure that any adequate sense of the situation in regard to this matter would cause the greatest missionary revival in the Church at home that it has ever had. The last Calcutta Gazette contained a report on the effects of the earthquake of June 12 through- out Bengal, which, though decidedly belated owing to the delay of some districts in furnishing statis- tics, gives the first complete description of the full extent of the disaster in the lower provinces : " All accounts agree that the shock could not have hap- pened at an hour more favorable to minimizing loss of life, and the total fatalities reported throughout Bengal were only one hundred and thirty-five, a re- markable result considering the far-reaching range of the disturbance. The destruction to govern- ment buildings, as measured by the cost of repairs, is estimated at nearly thirteen lakhs of rupees, but private property suffered much more heavily. Cal- cutta proprietors speak of damage to the extent of sixteen and one half lakhs— $550,000 — though this FIFTEEN HUNDRED MILES NORTHWARD. 89 is regarded as exaggerated. The damage to the Assam-Bengal Hne has already been described, but the Eastern Bengal State Railway, which was the only other Hne seriously injured, was blocked for a fortnight by the destruction of bridges, culverts, and embankments south of Siliguri, and through communication on the Parbatipur-Jatrapur branch was also interrupted for some time. Postal com- munication between the plains and Darjeeling, where the government headquarters were at the time, was suspended for three days. As regards the physical results and surface changes, the same effects were noticeable as in Assam, although on a more moderate scale. Long cracks and fissures opened in the ground, water and sand were ejected, wells were choked up, and river channels blocked and diverted by the upheaval of their beds, thus altering the drainage and leading to floods. The Rangpur district, on the whole, suffered most in this way, and a number of villages were continually under water after the earthquake until the end of the rains. Taken all around, the severity of the shock and the damage caused in Bengal were far more serious than any of the half-dozen earth- quakes of the previous one hundred and forty years of sufficient intensity to have been especially remembered." I am glad to learn that in the midst of this terrible destruction in Calcutta by the earthquake, in which the spire of the English cathedral was thrown down and the roof seriously damaged, and 90 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. in which forty families belonging to our English- speaking church in that city had their houses destroyed, not a single piece of the property be- longing to our Church was injured. We have three churches, five school buildings, a publishing house, and four or five pastors' residences. Benares,* December 30. All tourists who wish to see Hinduism as it really is come to this most "sacred " city on the Ganges. We were met at the station by two daughters of Dr. E. J. Lazarus, who took us in a fine private carriage to their almost palatial home, in which missionaries of any Church and their friends are always sure of a hospitable welcome. The doctor has entertained several of our bishops and many of our missionaries. He and his family are actively engaged in various religious enterprises. We have no mission in Benares, but we were courteously shown about the city for two days in the carriage of our host by his daughters, and by the Rev. Mr. Gregory, the Wesleyan missionary. Cawnpore, January 3, 1898. We have been most delightfully entertained here for a few days in the hospitable home of Mrs. Bond, formerly Miss Sue McBurnie, of the Phila- delphia Branch, Woman's Foreign Missionary So- ciety. This city was one of the great sufferers in the mutiny of 1857. We have visited the Memorial * See page 237. FIFTEEN HUNDRED MILES NORTHWARD. 91 Well, the Massacre Ghat, etc.; also the most unique bazaar and market we have seen anywhere. We have seen hanging on four or five trees I think fully one thousand " flying foxes " — a strange species of giant bat, with a head and body just like a fox and with filmy wings which spread out four feet. We have attended the opening of a new build- ing for our native girls' school. One evening Mrs. Bond invited in a number of missionaries to tea with us, including several from the Union Zenana Mission, founded by Mrs. Doremus, of New York. I have here baptized ten children between three and eleven years of age, " famine waifs " that Mr. and Mrs. Bond have adopted. They have twenty- one such children now. LUCKNOW, January 3. On my previous visit to this place I had met Miss Isabella Thoburn, who may fitly be termed thern^other of our woman's work in India, and who for almost thirty years has wrought as nobly in her realm as her bishop brother has in his. Lucknow has become famous for all time by the magnificent defense made there by a garrison of British soldiers in the time of the mutiny, and by the glorious relief achieved by Sir Henry Havelock, the model Christian soldier, in whom valor and patriotic devotion found their climax, and whose grave, near the scene of his greatest victory, at- tracts all tourists. 92 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. CHAPTER XIII. Conference Sketches. Bareilly, January 8, 1898. MY Conference work in this country is very interesting indeed, and is easy in comparison with the large home Conferences, partly because these Conferences are so much smaller, and largely because the official labors and responsibilities are divided between Bishop Thoburn and myself. This North India Conference is the largest of them all, having eighty-six members, about one third foreign missionaries and two thirds natives. We had hoped before this time to see Bishop Joyce, but he has evidently been detained in China longer than he anticipated, and is now nearing Calcutta ; so we expect to see him at the Conferences of the next two weeks. I wish it were possible for me to convey some vivid impression of the missionary work in this country, and of the way the missionaries live and work. Their houses — I mean, of course, those of the American missionaries — are generally in large " compounds " of from five to twenty acres each. Some of them are built entirely of clay (" mud " they call it here); others of coarse, heavy bricks, covered with stucco. The walls are very thick and solid, the ceilings generally about twenty feet CONFERENCE SKETCHES. 93 high, with raih-oad bars for beams. Only teak wood can be used, for the white ants will quickly cat up almost any other kind of wood. The rooms are large and spacious, each bedroom having con- nected with it a bath room, with a tin or earthen bath tub. Most of the houses have no fire in them, though here in North India fires are indispensa- ble for comfort in the short, brilliantly sunny, but rather cold winters. Just now we are said to be having the coldest time known in years in Barcilly. The thermometer stood 43° this morning outdoors and 54° in my room. We have to be loaded down with bedclothes, but sleep very comfortably. The church in which we meet has no provision for fire in it, so I am wearing my thickest winter flannels and cloth suit, and my winter overcoat and silk cap, and in ad- dition to these sit in the Conference room with my shawl round my knees, not shivering, but wishing for a Philadelphia furnace. What I say about the weather here must not lead you to think of the Avinters in which you shiver. Dr. Goucher plucked this morning, in this compound, about three dozen splendid roses of five different colors ; also a cluster of violets. What do you think of that for January 8 ? Every evening at eight o'clock the American missionaries and their wives, and the Women's Foreign Missionary Society ladies, about fifty in number, hold free-and-easy, conversational, spirit- ual, marvelously interesting prayer meetings, which 94 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. have been held daily at the sessions of this Confer- ence ever since it was organized. I led the meet- ing last night, and gave them as a motto what they certainly need to apply to their own hearts for their comfort amid the trials of missionaries' lives, these words of St. Paul, which have been an unspeakable blessing to me ever since they found me, some forty years ago : " My God shall supply all your need, according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus." Concerning the work of missionaries, I have found no brief statement of the misconceptions many entertain (and at the same time of the nature and value of one important part of that work) more vivid and more just than that given by Julian Hawthorne in the Cosmopolitan magazine for Sep- tember, 1897. I must indulge myself in a brief quotation from it, premising that the missionary family referred to belong to our Church: "The household consisted of the missionary and his wife and a young lady who was assisting them, and three or four immaculate Mohammedan serv- ants, at wages of from one to two dollars a month. There were a horse and buggy, a chapel, and, within the walls of the compound, some neat buildings for the accommodation of the native children who were supported and instructed by the mission. The family sat down thrice a day to a wholesome but Spartan meal. The husband worked with all his might from dawn to dark ; and after dark in his study, helping distress, averting evil, cheering sorrow, enlightening ignorance, and praying with CONFERENCE SKETCHES. 95 heart and soul to the God and Christ who was more real to him than any earthly thing. His lovely, artless, human, holy wife, with faith like a little child's, and innocent as a child, yet wise and steadfast in all that touched her work, labored as untiringly and selflessly as her husband ; and so did the other angel in the house. There were, perhaps, a hundred native children, either orphaned or deserted, who had begun to get flesh on their bones, and were busy and happy in learning to read and write their native language and in sing- ing hymns of praise to the new living God who loves children, meeting morning and evening in the chapel for the purpose, and to listen to stories about this God's loving dealings with his creatures, told by native Christian teachers and by the mis- sionary himself. They also learned, for the first time in their lives, what it was to live in clean and orderly rooms, and to be fed abundantly and regu- larly, and to be treated with steady, intelligent, and unselfish affection. These children would have died of the famine had not the mission found and saved them. "'Travelers in India,' remarked my friend, with his cheery smile, ' report us missionaries as living in luxury, waited on by troops of servants, demoralizing native simplicity by an impractica- ble morality, stuffing them with theological dogmas which they can't understand, forcing them to wear unsuitable and unaccustomed clothes ; and that the upshot of our work is to make them hypocritically 96 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. profess a faith they don't beheve in, in order to curry favor, and to ruin them with the vices of civ- iUzation instead of saving them with its virtues. Well, now you have a chance to see how it is for yourself.' " Allahabad, January 17. The Northwest India Conference, which has just been in session, has, more than any other Con- ference I have seen in any land, the " swing of con- quest." During the past year it has had a phe- nomenal increase in the number of baptisms, of probationers, and of full members. It has been mightily inspired, and is now deeply distressed, by the Macedonian cry which pours in upon it from the whole circle of the horizon. I have never met a band of workers so penetrated by the conviction that all things are possible to them if they can only get the men and the money. In spite of all their discouragements, their faith transcends their fears. They seem to hear the voice of God, even as Abraham did at Bethel, saying: " Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art, northward and southward and eastward and westward. " For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed forever. " And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth : so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered. " Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it ; for I will give it unto thee." CONFERENCE SKETCHES. 97 This Coiifci-eiicc has about forty-five mhiisters, and is but little nioi-e than half the size of the North India, which we have just held in Barcilly. In addition to what this Conference gets from the Missionary Society, Bishop Thoburn raises for it from private sources about $12,000 a year. Still, after cutting as closely as possible, we found at the Finance Committee meeting that we were yet $1,200 short. I never saw such cheerful and self- sacrificing giving. The presiding elders subscribed ten per cent of their salaries (and others subscribed too), and when it was mentioned in the evening prayer meeting several of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society ladies insisted on giving one hundred rupees each. To-day they are all as happy about it as though each had found a little fortune. God will reward them. The work in this Conference is the most rapidly growing work we have in India, and all feel that it must not be curtailed. Our gracious host at this Conference, the Rev. Rockwell Clancy, has provided, after the labors of the morning, for occasional amusement in the afternoon, on the fine lawn before his house. One afternoon he had a snake charmer, who showed us his dancing cobras and quarreling scorpions, and also a rope walker who performed most marvelous feats. This afternoon he has helped me to cele- brate my birthday on the back of an elephant, where I was photographed, together with Bishop Thoburn, Bishop Joyce, and Dr. Goucher. 98 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. LUCKNOW, January 20. Bishop and Mrs. Joyce are with us. The Cen- tral India Conference has opened delightfully. It concentrates in a wonderful way the interest of our work in all this region, being quite akin to our Gen- eral Conference. It has delegates from Singapore, Rangoon, Madras, Calcutta, Bombay, Naini Tal, and all the great cities between these. Each class and phase of our missionary work is represented in it. Its delegates come from the Annual, Dis- trict, and Women's Conferences. Some of the ladies take part, in brief, modest and pertinent remarks. Most matters of importance are referred to some of the fourteen standing committees, and are carefully considered there, and then brought forward in elaborate reports. We have had some very able debates, which have resulted, in two or three cases, in tabling reports of comm.ittees and in preventing manifestly unwise action ; and in similar ways some very good new measures have been adopted. The members and guests of the Central Confer- ence, about one hundred and twenty in number, are scattered around, every missionary family being overrun ; Miss Thoburn having a large number at her school, and a good many sleeping in tents set up all around the compounds. Our entertainment is excellent. I have learned to love guavas, which at first tasted to me like turpentine ; and tea — well ! everybody drinks tea in unlimited quantities many times a day. The truth is, everybody is afraid of CONFERENCE SKETCHES. 99 the water and of the milk, unless certain that they have been boiled. Last year a renowned physi- cian, who had lived many years in India and had gone back to end his days in England, was per- suaded, by the promise of a great fee, to return to treat again a native prince, who had formerly been a patient of his. On his arrival the prince gave him a feast, at which he drank a glass of milk into which an unfaithful butler had poured some un- boiled water, to fill up the glass ; and the physi- cian died of cholera before the next morning. At the railroad restaurants travelers generally take tea or bottled soda water. Yesterday noon we had an eclipse of the sun, but we were two hundred and fifty miles too far north to see it total ; yet it was very solemn and impressive. The partial darkness was that of a cold and sullen sunset coming suddenly. About nine tenths of the sun was eclipsed ; only a bright crescent remained. The spots of sunshine on the ground amid the shadows of foliage were all crescents ; so were the spots of light on sheets of paper held two feet away from other sheets pierced with pinholes. We took a recess, and when we went back into the church one wall of it was illuminated by rays from a stained glass window, and in the midst of the bril- liant colors there were four golden crescents. The natives talked of the eclipse as the sun being swal- lowed by a dragon. One coolie ran through the street shouting out that statement, and with 100 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. Yankee ingenuity added that if the people would hand him some backsheesh the dragon would soon give the sun back. On Sunday morning at half past eight o'clock Dr. Goucher led a young people's meeting, and at half past nine I preached. After we had sung " Never further than thy cross " and " Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to thee," Bishop Joyce baptized fifteen young women, thrown upon our care by the famine; all of whom, but for such refuge, would doubtless have been forced into lives of shame. Three of them were Brahmans, two Mohammedans, and ten outcasts ; all converted. Such a sight, or any of fifty scenes I have wit- nessed in India, would electrify and melt any con- gregation in America. TWO PEN PICTURES. 101 CHAPTER XIV. Two Pen Pictures. I HAVE never coveted the rare art of painting with the pen so much as since I came to India. It would bean unspeakable pleasure if I could com- municate to my friends in America a vivid and im- pressive sense of many things which I have seen in this oriental land ; especially, if by any means I could set forth any fit representations of the sharp and pathetic contrasts between heathenism and Christianity which thrust themselves before my eyes almost every day. Possibly something may be gained by attempting the impossible. I have recently witnessed such an indescribable contrast. There is now in progress iii Allahabad at the junc- tion of the two very sacred rivers, the Ganges and the Jumna, a heathen vuia.^ Mela is the word for any great religious festival, and has been applied for ages to the great gatherings of pilgrims in sacred places for the worship of their gods. The same word has also been adopted by Christians for their annual open-air religious gatherings, and in their use of it it is pretty nearly synonymous with " camp meeting." The inela now in progress in this city lasts about a month. The pilgrims come and go, most of them staying for from one to three or four See page 223. 102 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. days ; but some, claiming to be especially devout, remain the entire month. They suppose there is very special virtue in bathing in the sacred waters at the junction of these two most renowned of their sacred rivers. I saw crowds of pilgrims, men and women, com- ing and going, carrying large coarse blankets, in which they roll themselves up to sleep at night in the clear but sharply cold nights of this winter sea- son. They gather chiefly on the vast sandy plain, which stretches away from the low bluff on the river bank, and which their numberless feet have trodden into a deep dust ; through which, on a very wide avenue which is the main highway from the city to the river, water carriers, with huge skin bottles slung from their shoulders, sprinkle broad paths. All along the chief avenue there are lines of beggars, many of whom clamorously thrust them- selves before you, displaying most frightful physical deformities — there were several lepers among them. Others sat in the dust on their blankets, or on pieces of coarse sailcloth, importunately calling for alms, now and then receiving the smallest copper coins, or cowries, or little handfuls of rice or other grains. At frequent intervals there were devotees, some of whom have been for years in most painful pos- tures, hoping thereby to become holy, and who are familiarly spoken of by the Hindus as " holy men." Some were on beds of spikes ; some buried in the dust all except their nostrils ; some standing for TWO PEN PICTURES. 103 years on one foot, or with an arm outstretched and as stiff as wood. There passed along through this vast crowd of pilgrims and beggars a few men distributing alms, doubtless with some notion of religious duty, but in a way which showed their utter lack of sympathy and, in some cases, a spirit of brutality. One man in a carriage had two servants with him to dis- tribute very coarse and cheap shawls or blankets. Wherever he went his carriage was thronged by scores of clamorous beggars, many of whom he very rudely pushed aside ; and one very wretched-look- ing man who was too clamorous, and who obstructed his way, he struck on the face with his cane, draw- ing blood. The poor fellow then sank down in the sand in despair and gave up his effort. Other men passed along with bags of grain and flung handfuls of it at the wretches sitting on their blankets by the wayside, so carelessly that much of it fell in the sand instead of on the blankets, and had to be picked out grain by grain. No words of mine can convey any just sense of what I felt concerning the measureless and des- perate degradation which their heathenism had brought to hundreds of millions of people in this country; nor of the zest and relish with which I turn away from such scenes, and often with melted heart and moistened eyes look on other pictures, such as a Methodist Conference has just now fur- nished me. It was the North India Conference, the mother of our noble work in this country, which, 104 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. after all the territory which has been set off from it to constitute other Conferences, now has eighty-six ministers, more than two thirds of whom are natives. It met in Bareilly, where Dr. Butler planted India Methodism, and where, in less than one year, it was rudely uprooted by the Great Mutiny, but was replanted the following year. That planting now has fruitage but poorly indicated by such statistics as these : nearly eighty thousand communicants, and about the same number of Sunday school schol- ars. From day to day there sat in the Conference the venerable Joel Janvier, our first native preacher, furnished us by the Presbyterian Church. He has long been totally blind, but his glowing words as- sured us that he clearly sees the Eternal City to which he is hastening. There sat also in the Con- ference from day to day Rev. Dr. Humphrey, who near Bareilly baptized our first convert in India. The daily program of the Conference ran thus : Conference prayer meeting at eight o'clock in the morning ; session of the Conference from eleven to two; at two o'clock the women's conference and the meeting of the presiding ciders ; at six o'clock a sermon ; and at eight o'clock, around the " mess table," after tea, an exceedingly fresh, unconven- tional, conversational, spiritual prayer and confer- ence meeting of some sixty American missionaries, wives of missionaries, and women workers. This meeting has always been a distinctive and most delightful feature of the North India Conference, and is anticipated from year to year as an occasion TWO PEN PICTURES. 105 of great spiritual refreshment. Many a young mis- sionary and lady teacher has found it both an ar- senal and an armory. The usual Sunday services were productive of much religious interest and quickening ; but the oc- casion which furnished me a picture long to hang in the gallery of my memory was the baptism of a hun- dred and fifteen little girls ; " famine waifs " a year ago, now surrounded by the inestimable blessings of a Christian home in our orphanage, under the care of Miss English. They all sat on the floor, in three rows, in a large space in front of the pulpit, their bare feet projecting from under their neat, plain dresses, and their heads wrapped in little chadars. Many of them had very bright faces and piercing black eyes. One benefit of the awful fam- ine is that thousands of such young immortals who would have lived and died heathen are now under the care of the Christian Church, many hundreds of them in the orphanages of our own Church. Immediately after the close of the session of the Conference I went to a little village of mud huts, five miles from the city, for the baptism of forty- four persons, recent converts, wath their infant chil- dren, and to lay the foundation of the new Butler Chapel. It was peculiarly affecting to see these "living stones," just hewn from nature's quarry, placed for baptism on the site of the chapel about to be built. We first placed a few coarse, unburnt bricks in the trench dug for the foundation, spread some mud on them, and consecrated them in the 106 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. name of the holy Trinity. The presiding elder closely questioned the adult candidates for baptism ; breaking down the questions into little bits, making comments on them, and mentioning the specific sins which they most needed to give up ; and then we sprinkled the dusky foreheads, pronouncing over them the adorable Triune name. The entire scene was exceedingly primitive, rude, and simple ; but probably no more so than baptism in the apostolic times. Our veteran presiding elders assure me that in such cases, where most of the population of little villages turn to Christ in baptism, if they are faith- fully looked after by pastor-teachers, it often occurs that not five per cent of them go back from their Christian profession, and that the most of them steadily progress in moral conduct and Christian life, and many of them attain to a very clear and growing personal religious experience. CENTRAL INDIA CONFERENCE. 107 CHAPTER XV. Central India Conference. [Address to the Central India Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church at Lucknow, January 20, 1898.] Brethren and Sisters, Dearly Beloved in THE Lord : \/0U meet this year under circumstances some- 1 what novel. In all its previous sessions this Conference has had but a single president. It was organized under the supervision of one of the Gen- eral Superintendents of the Methodist Episcopal Church as its president, and since the year 1888 has had for its sole president a missionary bishop. The General Conference, the great law-making body of our Church, at its last session, in 1896, thought it wise to introduce into the law of the Church a provision for the joint supcrintendency of every Mission under the supervision of a missionary bishop, by that bishop and the general superin- tendents of the whole Church, once in each quad- rennium. In accordance with this arrangement you meet this year under the presidency of two of your bishops. Permit me frankly to say that it is a very great pleasure to me to have been assigned by my col- leagues to this official visitation. When, almost eighteen years ago, I was elected to my present 108 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. office, and began to consider the probability of my assignment to foreign visitations, no missionary field under the care of our Church seemed to be so inviting as India; and I hoped before many years should elapse to be assigned to the Conferences in this immensely populous and exceedingly interest- ing country. Two years later a severe physical injury, with its consequent lingering disability, rendered it imprac- ticable for me to receive that assignment; and some of my junior colleagues enjoyed the great satisfaction of this visitation instead of myself. Four years ago, however, my long-cherished hope seemed likely in large part to be realized. Having been assigned by the Board of Bishops to the official visitation of Eastern Asia, the Board of Managers of the Missionary Society gave me a special commission, together with my greatly es- teemed present traveling companion, the Rev. John F. Goucher, D.D., to make careful inquiry on one specific line into the condition of our Mis- sions throughout India and Europe ; but having started on this errand I was arrested and turned back at the end of the first thousand miles by another bodily injury. Excuse these personal allusions, which show you with what great pleasure I now realize my long-cherished expectation of visiting India. Greetings. In the name of the Board of Bishops, and of our Church at home, I bring you most cordial greet- CENTRAL INDIA CONFERENCE. 109 ings. I know that this is Methodism greeting Methodism, and by no means the sakitation of one Church by another. You belong to us and vvc be- long to you. We are one in the Lord Jesus Christ, one also in Methodist character, traditions, doctrine, polity, experience, fellowship, and brotherly love. It would be impossible for me to tell you how dear you are to the Church in America, how intense our interest is in your welfare, with what admiration and gratitude to Almighty God we have watched your history from the beginning, suffering with you in your trials, rejoicing with you in your joys ; and how we are filled with wonder and thankfulness to the great Head of the Church for the marvelous success which from time to time in sundry places and in various ways has marked the unique history of Methodism in India. First Impressions. You will not expect from me a resume of that history, nor of the progress achieved since your last biennial session. Your greatly beloved and inde- fatigable resident bishop can, of course, render you this service with very much fuller intelligence than myself. You will rather expect me candidly to state some of my impressions concerning the situ- ation as it strikes one who, although a stranger in the country, is not altogether a stranger to the work of our Methodism in India. While crossing the Indian Ocean I heard what may be here the very familiar story of a young 110 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. missionary recruit on his outward voyage, who told a veteran returning from a well-earned furlough that he had already reached very definite impressions concerning many things in India, and proposed to begin at once to furnish them to the papers at home. The veteran replied : " Yes, by all means. I advise you to send them within three weeks ; for after that time you will not be sure enough of them to send them at all." The impressions, however, which I am about to state have not been so hastily formed, but have their roots in years long gone by. From the other side of the globe I have been a careful observer of Methodism in India from the year it was planted until now. As a member of the Board of Managers of the Missionary Society, and of the General Mis- sionary Committee, and for eighteen years with much fuller and more frequent sources of knowledge as a member of the Board of Bishops, I have informed myself about it; and have felt profounder interest in it than in any other mission work under the care of our Church. Some of the impressions thus formed at a distance have been strongly con- firmed, and, I may say, greatly intensified, by the observations of the past three months, and by my careful conversations with your missionary workers in the field. Broad and Solid Foundations. First of all I have been struck with the patent fact that India Methodism has broad and solid CENTRAL INDIA CONFERENCE. Ill foundations. In my judgment it has occasion to hold in grateful and lasting memory the names of William Butler and William Taylor. Other names occur to me of workers now in the field worthy of similar honor ; but I may mention these two fathers of different departments of your work without invidiousncss, because they long since left this field, and in age and feebleness are lingering awhile in Beulah before ascending to receive their starry crowns. William Butler, flaming with zeal, full of continental, and even world-wide, ambition for Christ and for Methodism, devised large things; bought or begged large compounds ; built well ; and, having accomplished a great foundation work in this country, went forth at the call of the Church to achieve the rare distinction of being the founder of a second mission on another continent. William Taylor seems to me to have done two important things for India Methodism : in giving it a really remarkable impulse in several great cities on evan- gelistic lines, being God's appointed leader of a general revival movement, the fruits of which are still conspicuous in not a few of your very excellent ministerial and lay workers ; and also in founding several strong churches on the principle of self- support. You will all gladly join me in the prayer that these veteran heroes, who can no longer go forth to battle, may in their declining years be abundantly cheered and comforted by that infinite grace of which they have been God's appointed channels to many souls. 8 112 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. That the foundations of Methodism in this em- pire have been soHdly laid is plainly indicated in many ways, among the rest in these : the variety, thoroughness, and excellence of its educational system for both natives and Europeans, extending from the kindergartens and the humblest village schools through regular gradations to a well- equipped and creditable theological seminary ; and also by its thorough utilization of the Methodistic polity, doctrines, and experience which have been in every land the vital forces of Methodism from the days of John Wesley until now. It has been partic- ularly interesting to me to observe the workings of your District Conferences, and to recall to mind the striking historical fact that the District Confer- ence had its conception and birth in India before the General Conference gave it legislative standing. I have also been struck at your camp meetings and love feasts with the definite, and often the strik- ingly fresh and unique, statements of personal religious experience given by the native converts; and by the positively Methodistic type of the preaching which I have heard, alike from the mis- sionaries and from the natives. During four days at the Hathras mela the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, at once as the divine witness to personal salvation and as the divine anointing for service, received such emphasis as I have not known it to have received in any similar meeting in America. Surely Christ's promise was there fulfilled, " He shall tes- tify of me." CENTRAL INDIA CONFERENCE. 113 Character ok tuk Workers. Another impression which I must guardedly state, lest my words should seem fulsome, relates to the character of the workers. One of the surest and readiest tests of any great movement may be found in its reflex effect upon its promoters. I have therefore observed with care the men and the women who have been attracted to this field, the years of service they have rendered in it, their anx- iety to return after health-seeking furloughs, the recruits who have been raised up on the soil, and what manner of spirit has been developed in both these classes of workers. During all my ministry I have had my private Eleventh of Hebrews, my per- sonal roster of the heroes of the faith, holy men and women, zealous for God and for all goodness ; not indeed perfect, especially not perfect critics, but better saints by far than Samson and Rahab and Jephtha who have place in the apostolic roster ; self-denying, zealous, growing, believing workers " of whom the world is not worthy," and at whose feet I am glad to sit. To this list I have been able with clear conviction to make additions from the ranks of your workers, both native and foreign, since I came to India. There are shadows in every picture ; there was a Judas among the apostles, and no doubt there were weak men not overburdened by common sense or devotion among the seventy; yet in those days Christianity was planted and grew; and it has been planted and has grown in India. It has grown marvelously. 114 from the himalayas to the equator. Evangelistic Successes. I must here name as an impression (which has been to me almost a painful one) its comparatively recent, and, for reasons which you will understand, its seriously embarrassing evangelistic successes. Methodism has always preached salvation now to any repenting sinner, and has in every land been taken at its word. John and Charles Wesley uniquely said, that " God then thrust them out to raise a holy people." This statement carried both the revival impulse and the inward propulsion of territorial ex- pansion which have characterized Methodism in every land from then till now. Both these im- pulses are conspicuous in India Methodism. Wil- liam Butler, under the advice of Bishop Simpson and Dr. Durbin who sent him out, after full consul- tation with the heads of sundry missions in this country, gladly accepted the assignment of a com- paratively small field in Northern India, and began his work. The good seed grew, and sent out branches like those of the banyan tree ; they have dropped their roots here and there all about India and Burma and Malaysia, and they are bearing fruits which entitle them to be recognized as an integral part of " world-wide Methodism." When, some ten years ago, one of your veteran and most esteemed missionaries was elected to the bishopric of this vast field, he electrified the churches in many places by declaring his sober hope that he might live to see the time when there would be ten thousand heathen converted in India under the CENTRAL INDIA CONFERENCE. 115 care of our Church in a shiglc year. Some good people who heard this utterance wondered whether it was the prophetic utterance of an apostle of God, or the passionate cry of a fanatic. That dilemma was solved years ago by successes transcending the vision of the seer. In my preliminary tour of observation in Northern India it was my great priv- ilege to see rich fruits already harvested, and amid the ripening fields to find credible indications that many thousands of raw heathen might be brought speedily, and with fair intelligence, to forsake their idols and begin a new life with their faces toward the Cross, and with public profession of faith in Christ by baptism ; if only we could provide them (as one of the native preachers said in my hearing) with " holders-up." This explains my use of the word " painful." My soul has been distressed by the thought that the providence and Spirit of God, in answer to the prayers sent up through succeeding generations of faithful sowing and very scanty reaping, have out- run the faith and the liberality of the Church, and have made your riches your greatest embarrass- ment. You have recently observed a day of praj^er for " the awakening of India ;" there is more urgent need of prayer for the awakening of America to the greatness of the opportunity and the duty of the hour. Since I came to India I have heard missionaries of three branches of the Christian Church sadly admit that, after a great many years of diligent and 116 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. expensive labor in the educational field in certain large cities, they have not had through that work a single convert ; and one of them positively declared that even two or three conversions would speedily break up entirely his school for high-caste natives. I am well aware that our work has reached a few persons of almost every caste, but I am profoundly thankful that it has effectually reached tens of thou- sands of "outcasts;" and I trust that from that foundation it will work its way through all ranks of society. Self-support. Grave problems confront us in this vast, various, intensely interesting field, which ought no longer to be spoken of as India and Malaysia, but as South- ern Asia. One of the chief of these is the question of the relation of self-support to the contributions of men and women and money from the Church in America. No doubt if India is ever saved, it must under God be saved by India. America can never save India. England can never save India. Yet help must be given until Christianity is thoroughly established in every part of the land ; and until the power of self-support, not only in the lowest item of pecuniary contribution, but in the higher mat- ters of Christian education, of developed brains, of holy character, and of the power of wise and effec- tive and permanent ecclesiastical self-government, shall have been fully reached. How best to move forward toward such self-support you have long considered. At the recent Annual Conferences it CENTRAL INDIA CONFERENCE. 117 has been with me a matter of the most careful in- quiry and study. Suggestions relating to it, orig- inating largely with Dr. Goucher, have been sent up to you as memorials from these Conferences, and I am sure will receive your most careful atten- tion, I trust some conclusions may be reached by you which, while immediately and largely effective in your own field, will not in any degree tend to diminish, but rather to stimulate and augment, the contributions from our churches in America. Adaptations of Methodism. Few things in India have impressed me more strongly than the manifest adaptation of Methodism to the educational and evangelistic work needed here. Christians of other Churches than ours have observed with admiration the remarkable ease and efficiency with which our system adjusts itself to the peculiarities of the most diverse peoples in all zones and among all races. Having originated, and having thus far secured its greatest successes among Anglo-Saxons, on shores swept by the freezing winds of the North Atlantic, and on immense prairies bound for half the year in chains of ice, Methodism flourishes just as well where mangoes blush and punkahs wave. From the East and West and North and South it is evermore sending up blood-washed spirits to join the shining ranks around the throne of God. The true follower of John Wesley is not he who gropes in the dust to find his very footprints, but the man who catches 118 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. his spirit and all-animating purpose, and employs his general methods, sagaciously adapting them to ever-changing needs. Believing this, American Methodism long since adjusted its methods to the conditions of a rapidly-growing continental popula- tion, free from the shackles of an established Church. You have found it practicable and useful to transplant in this country almost every particular institution and method of American Methodism. You have the episcopacy, the General Conference, this Central Conference, which might be character- ized as in some sense a revised, abridged, and, let us trust, improved edition of the General Confer- ence ; Annual, District, and Quarterly Conferences ; both the itinerant and the local ministry, the ex- horter and the class leader, and the other officers so well known to Methodism. Some of these in- stitutions and offices you have adjusted to the special conditions and needs of the people among whom you work, with manifestly excellent results. In particular, your enlargement of the work of the District Conferences, and appointment of pastor- teachers and of the leaders of the daily village prayers, furnish illustration of skillful adaptation to new environments. Need of more Episcopal Supervision. While the results already realized are a rich fruitage of the labors which preceded them, and an inspiration for the workers who are bearing the CENTRAL INDIA CONFERENCE. 119 burdens of to-day, they are also an earnest of larger ingatherings which must come in multiplied millions before India will have realized her redemp- tion. Standing, as we do, between the exceptional successes of the past and the limitless opportunities of the immediate future, there is no question of greater gravity demanding our consideration than what modifications of our economy may be neces- sary to provide for the careful supervision of the native agencies needed to furnish instruction and guidance for the multitudes willing to accept the Gospel. No words of mine can fitly express the interest felt by American Methodism, and especially by your Board of Bishops, in your work and in your success. You are an integral and notable factor in a great world movement. John Wesley prophet- ically said, " The world is my parish." His proph- ecy is swiftly becoming history; nowhere more swiftly than right here. The institution of the missionary bishopric in this region was meant to make this wondrous history more rapid. In taking that action the Church had no thought of holding you off at arm's length. She presses you to her heart. The new bishopric was made " coordinate " with the old. To some extent, however, it must be frankly ad- mitted, the close bond of sympathy and interest with the Church at home has been weakened in consequence of the cessation of the old-time bien- nial visits of the general superintendents. No one 120 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. wislied it so ; all regretted it ; and the General Missionary Committee in 1891 asked the General Conference to direct the renewal of such official visitations. It was felt that the interests of a field so vast, with work so varied and so rapidly devel- oping and extending, needed to be represented to the Church on the platform, through the press, in the Board of Managers, and especially at every meeting of the General Missionary Committee, by more than one official voice ; and that the bond of sympathy between India and America could be best maintained and strengthened by the careful reports and intelligent pleadings of a succession of official observers. Therefore am I here, and there- fore the law of the Church provides that like offi- cial visitations shall be made quadrennially. One important action taken by the Central India Conference at its last session furnishes clear indi- cation of your sense of the manifest need of more episcopal supervision. I refer, of course, to the request then made for the election of an additional missionary bishop. The notable progress secured since that time, and the very great, I may even say startling, development of the manifest possi- bilities of far more rapid progress in the near fu- ture, render that need still more urgent. There is no one of the bishops of our Church whose respon- sibilities are so grave, and whose duties of supervi- sion, in view of the swift developments sure to come in Southern Asia, are of such vast and far-reaching importance as those of your resident bishop. CENTRAL INDIA CONFERENCE. 121 The last General Conference gave earnest con- sideration to the question of the increase of epis- copal supervision necessary in this immense terri- tory, and thought it wise to attempt to supply that need by a method other than that which you had suggested. Few questions can engage the atten- tion of the next General Conference which will require greater wisdom than this, and the right solution of which will be fraught with more im- portant results for the future of Methodism, not only in Southern Asia, but also as a precedent in other mission fields, and possibly even in America itself. I know you will join me in the fervent prayer that he who raised up Methodism, and has guided its course from the beginning till now, will give wisdom for this emergency. Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. 122 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. CHAPTER XVI. Epworth League Extraordinary. THE Central Conference of India is a unique institution in our ecclesiastical machinery, a sort of miniature General Conference, meeting bi- ennially, consisting of delegates from six Confer- ences, whose territory stretches four thousand miles from northwest to southeast, and eighteen hundred miles from east to west, covering the whole of India, and also Malaysia as far south as Singapore, and whose work is carried on in more than a score of languages and dialects. This Conference held its biennial session in 1898, beginning January 20, in the historic city of Luck- now. Under the new law of the Church, providing for a quadrennial visitation by one of the general superintendents, in joint superintendency with the missionary bishop, this Conference had for the first time at its recent session two presidents, and was also favored with the presence of another visiting bishop (Bishop Joyce), and of yet another of the managers of our Missionary Society, Rev. Dr. Goucher. Its delegates included ministers and laymen, men and women, who were elected by An- nual, Women's and District Conferences, the total number being seventy. EPWORTH LEAGUE EXTRAORDINARY. 123 The unflagging interest awakened by the dis- cussions in the daily sessions was sustained, and even transcended, by the inspiration at some of tlie special evening meetings, no one of which raised the great audience which thronged our very spacious Hindustani church to a higher pitch of missionary zeal and religious enthusiasm than the mass meeting held in the interest of the Epworth League. The President of the Epworth League for South- ern Asia is the Rev. Dr. E. W. Parker, who has done signal service in this field for almost forty years, and whose sunny smile and cheery voice, wise and loving spirit, perennial youth, and unfailing self- abandonment to every good work, have won for him an enviable place in the esteem of his fellow- workers, and eminently fit him for inspiring leader- ship in this new movement, which is getting so strong a hold in India. Among the younger men whose conspicuous labors for the League gave them prominent places on the program was Pre- siding Elder F. W. Warne, Secretary of the Ep- worth League for Southern Asia, and Presiding Elder W. A. Mansell, President of the North India Conference Epworth League, the latter born in this country, and the son of a veteran presiding elder, who was also present. The keen interest and high enthusiasm of the occasion were kindled chiefly by two things : the display of an extraordinary number and variety of banners, and the parts taken in the exercises by 124 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. native Christians. On the broad and lofty front wall of the church were hung twenty-three Epworth League banners, representing work done by the League in twenty-four languages and dialects, one banner bearing two inscriptions : Urdu, Ganwari, Kumauni, Kanarese, Tamil, Telugu, Bhotiya, Guj. rati, Nepali, English, Bengali, Marathi, Garhvvali, Hindu, Marwari, Burmese, Hindustani, Romanized Hindu, Chinese, Fuelling Chinese, Punjabi, Malay, and Japanese. Probably no eye but God's could read all the inscriptions on these banners ; but the sight of them, and the thoughts they incidentally suggested, moistened many eyes and melted many hearts. The Epworth League meetings in this country have often been graced by several banners, but never before by so large a number. The dis- play of so great a collection was planned months in advance, and made more complete because of a request preferred by Dr. Goucher, to whom the entire collection was presented at the close of the meeting ; it is therefore likely to inspire great Epworth League and missionary meetings in America. Among the inscriptions upon them were the following : " Look up to Christ ; help the depressed." "Look up; give a hand." "Lord Jesus, save." " Pray and fight." " Look up and not down ; look forward and not back." " Sin is your enemy ; keep away from it ; keep goodness at your side." The program included individual and concert recitations of the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Com- EPWORTH LEAGUE EXTRAORDINARY. 125 mandmcnts, the Apostles' Creed, and the Twenty- third Psalm, given with the utmost readiness and accuracy by children who one year ago were ap- parently hopelessly sunk in the deep degradation of heathenism, but to whom the awful scourge of the famine opened a door of hope. Now they are well-fed and clothed, and faithfully taught by Christian men and women ; and not a few of them give evidence of a genuine, personal religious ex- perience. As we looked on them and thought of the many thousands thus rescued by Christian love, and tried to cast the horoscope of their future in this world and the next, and that of the great army of native children sure to follow them, and saw, with the clear eye of a faith warranted by experience in this land, scores of preachers and hundreds of teachers and thousands of faithful disciples, and that all these are only the seed of the vast India Metho- dism which is yet to be — no wonder our eyes swam and that these living banners diverted attention from the silken ones suspended above their heads. There were three hymns in English printed on the program, which were sung with great spirit. One of them, written for the occasion, was the fol- lowing : VICTORY WITH JESUS. " Victory for Jesus ! " They're coming right along ! Epworth Leaguers to the front, ten hundred thousand strong. Ready for the battle of the right against the wrong, Marching to victory with Jesus. 126 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. Chorus : " Look Up ! Lift Up !" — our motto and our song ; " Look Up ! Lift Up !" — and pass the word along, Till old Earth's circumference 'round, we've righted every wrong, Marching to victory with Jesus. Many are the enemies with whom we have to fight. But our cause will surely triumph — 'tis the cause of God and right. And going forth we battle in our glorious Leader's might. Fighting for victory with Jesus. Idols of the heathen and the idols at our door. Secret sins, intemperance, and their kindred by the score, We must banish each and all from every Christian shore, Praying for victory with Jesus. " Looking unto Jesus," we are present in the fray, " Lifting up for Jesus," we shall see the glorious day. When this world's dominions all shall own Messiah's sway, Joyful in victory with Jesus." We had also characteristic native music, which evoked alternate laughter and tears. Our mission- aries have wisely utilized the native airs and in- struments. Some of the most effective hymns are set to tunes familiar to the people in heathen fes- tivals. Perhaps the most popular of \.\\esQ bhaja7is, certainly the one I have oftenest heard, is " Jai, Prabhu Yisu, jai, jai, jai," "Victory to Jesus, vic- tory, victory, victory," which in camp meetings and other large and enthusiastic assemblies often ends with the concerted shout of "Jai, jai," by the whole congregation, very much like our "hurrah " at a political meeting. This was rendered by the EPWORTH LEAGUE EXTRAORDINARY. 127 Epworth League and the large audience on this occasion with tremendous gusto, presiding elders almost splitting their throats to help it on, and, I must frankly admit, bishops not altogether silent. At the chief temple in Calcutta for the worship of the shockingly obscene and cruel goddess Kali, for whom Calcutta is named, when the head of a goat or bullock is struck off at a single blow by the great sharp ax of the sacrificing priest, the wild crowd of worshipers gather round and scream out many times, " Kali, jai ! Kali, jai ! " Our mission- aries believe with Luther that " the devil ought not to have all the good tunes," and so when the heathen drop " Kali " they teach them still to keep "jai." The wife of one of our missionaries has prepared a book of bhajaiis, that is, heathen tunes set to genuinely Christian hymns, with repetitious and moving choruses, some of which have affectingly reminded me of the old-time camp-meeting songs which thrilled and helped transform my boyhood ; and these are manifestly helping on the swing of conquest which has already made Methodism God's saving message to more than one hundred thousand souls in India. Some of the instrumental music provoked more laughter and less tears ; but it also has manifestly its own place and power. It proceeded from a native band of eight men, all seated on the floor, having rude, discordant, indescribable instruments, which they shook or sawed or pounded with all 9 128 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. their might, accompanying the crash and jingle with weird singing full of intense religious senti- ment. All these men were Christians, and three of them local preachers. They reminded me of the Salvation Army. Their enthusiasm rose to such a pitch that they seemed likely to keep on all night if the stalwart presiding officer had not put on the brakes by threatening gestures and by pounding the altar rail. I have carefully considered the subject of this wild native music, and have talked with our trusted leaders about it, and have reached the clear opinion that our wonderfully flexible Methodism has a place for this battalion in our army of conquest in the most important missionary field of our Church anywhere on the face of the globe. The final announcement on the program was : " Five-minute speeches from our visitors." The re- markable and indescribable impression made by the meeting was manifest in the fact that the utter- ances, not only of the three American visitors, but also of the resident bishop, who has long been ac- customed to somewhat similar scenes, were so choked by emotion that speaking was almost im- possible, all of them feeling that reverent silence or shouts of praise would befit the hour better than any words that could be framed. The exercises had opened a wide rift through the dense gloom of heathenism, and had marvelously revealed the magnificent possibilities of the immediate future. A GENUINE BONANZA. 129 CHAPTER XVII. A Genuine Bonanza* SOME twenty years ago a Methodist preacher, who had been long studying various mission fields, became convinced that one of the most urgent needs in India was a thoroughly organized system of primary schools at the very base of the social fabric, among the teeming millions of the lowest caste and the " outcasts." God had blessed him and his wife with substance beyond their domestic needs ; and they were quite accustomed, after careful con- sideration, to the consecration of a large part of their income to the spread of the kingdom of Christ ; being no less interested in the progress of that kingdom among the antipodes than at their very doors. Tiiey, therefore, set apart a sum of money, intended to be not less than five thousand dollars a year, for the beginning and prosecution of school work in India. This was the seed of " the Goucher Schools," a designation which I have heard very many times since I came to India, often uttered with glowing countenance and moistened eyes. This system of schools was founded, and has been maintained for sixteen years, by the Rev. John F. Goucher, D.D., of Baltimore. After de- termining on the general plan of this new work he made application successively to the Board of 130 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. Education and to the Board of Trustees of the Methodist Episcopal Church, to learn if either would be willing to undertake the care of the funds and the general supervision of the work. Neither thought it best to do so ; and he thereupon wrote, fully detailing his purpose and plans, to the Rev. Dr. E. W. Parker, one of our veteran and most efficient presiding elders in Northern India. By one of those curious coincidences which are God's frequent method of leading his disciples in answer to prayer, this letter was passed in mid-ocean by an article from the pen of Dr. Parker to our religious press in America on the same subject, urgently setting forth the same great need. The complete scheme at first drawn out by Dr. Goucher has been carried out with scarcely any change until now. Its chief features were these : all the schools to be taught by Christian teachers ; every session to be opened with the reading of the Bible, the singing of a Christian hymn, and a prayer — all in the vernacular ; reading, writing, arithmetic, the Catechism of the Methodist Epis- copal Church and the singing of Christian hymns to be taught daily in every school. In 1882 fifty primary vernacular schools were accordingly opened among the lowest caste or out- cast people about Moradabad. In 1884 the central school at Moradabad was raised to the grade of a high school ; a compound of about three acres was purchased, and suitable buildings were erected for boarding and taking care of the boys. One hundred A GENUINE BONANZA. 131 scholarships were founded, entitling the boys from the lower schools who gave evidence of the greatest ability and best acquirements to free tuition, board, and clothing until they should be ready for the government entrance examination. These scholar- ships generally cover a period of nine years ; from twelve to sixteen dollars a year being found suffi- cient for the entire support of each boy. In 1885 fifty more schools were established (the whole number was afterward increased to one hun- dred and twenty), half to be for girls ; and no boys' school was to be continued in any village unless the girls of that village were also sent to be taught in the girls' school. This provision, a novel one for India, grew out of the founder's deep conviction that the Christian family is the divinely intended unit for the Church and for an enlightened and free nation. The effect of it has been that from the ranks of the students who have been taught in these schools more than two hundred Christian families are now established every year. The number of scholar- ships was also increased, provision being made for the more advanced teaching, and also for the board and care of the scholarship girls in the school of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society of Moradabad. For several years past there have been about three thousand children in daily attendance on these various schools, which have won not only the highest approbation of our own missionaries, but also that of well-informed missionaries in other 132 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. denominations ; missionaries of the Presbyterian Cliurcli and of the Church of England having several times declared these schools to constitute "the best missions in India." They are also said to have furnished in large part the stimulus and support to the great revival movement of recent years in the Northwest Prov- inces and Oudh ; having supplied Christian instruc- tors, pastors, subpastors, pastor-teachers, leaders, and Bible women for the work. About four hun- dred of the active workers of these classes, now scattered all over India, were taught and converted in these schools. We found them wherever we went. In the mcla at Fatehganj there were fifty- four former students from these schools present as workers and as members of the Pilibhit District Conference ; at the Budaon mcla, forty-seven ; at the Hathras camp meeting, sixty-three. Just about one half of the students in the Bareilly Theological Seminary at the present time, and for some years past, had their earlier training in these schools. Forty-three of the eighty-four now there, twelve of this year's graduating class of twenty-four, and eleven of last year's graduating class of twenty- three, were taught and converted in these schools; as were also fifteen ministers of the Northwest India Annual Conference. That this work, begun at the very bottom of society, is steadily pushing up into the ranks above, is manifest by the following figures : of the scholarship boys now in the Moradabad High A GENUINE BONANZA. 133 School, thirty are sons of teachers ; twenty-six, of farmers; seven, of night watchmen; nine, of serv- ants; four, of weavers; five, of shoemakers; thir- teen, of carpenters, wool workers, and other classes. Though founded among the low caste, some of the schools have as many as seven castes represented in daily attendance, and many of their former scholars are now filling positions far more honorable and more lucrative than were held by any of their ancestors. The directly religious result of this school work is manifest in the conversion of many thousands of natives. The five presiding elders in whose dis- tricts the most of these schools are located, reported three years ago that, through the schools and through the labors of the preachers and evan- gelists who had been converted in them, more than twenty-seven thousand natives have been brought to Christ. The evidences of the progress of this school work and of the enthusiastic interest felt in it, alike by our missionaries and by the natives whom it has immediately touched, confronted Dr. Goucher and myself in our first month's tour in Northern India before the sessions of the Annual Conferences began. At several railroad stations, in one or two instances very early in the morning, "Goucher Schools" were drawn up to greet us with waving banners and happy songs, and to look upon the sunny face of the man whom thousands will always think of as, under God, their deliverer from the thraldom of 134 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. heathenism. At one station we were met by a sohtary caller, a native minister who had walked twenty-one miles to see Dr. Goucher. His very low salaam and glowing face and tearful eyes as he said " I am your servant, you are my saviour," fur- nished one among the multitudinous incidents which led the founder of these schools to feel that the one hundred thousand dollars bestowed upon them is by far the best investment he has ever made. One old-time college friend of his, moved by his example, established, a few years ago, a system of similar schools on the same general plan ; and the results, in proportion to their number, are just as notably successful. Who that reads this careful and dispassionate statement of marvelous facts will see in it God's summons, " Go and do thou likewise? " SOME INDIA FRUITS. 135 CHAPTER XVIII. Some India Fruits. LET not this heading quicken any physical appe- tite, for I am not about to speak of the novel and delicious native fruits which delight the palate of the foreign tourist, such as the mango, mango- steen, custard apple, durian, hair fruit, and papaya ; but of the " fruits of the Spirit " manifested in the lives of the native converts. St. Peter lays down the fundamental principle of Gospel propagandism in these words : " For so is the will of God, that with well-doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men." No wise missionary expects any large success until the old Gospel demonstrates its ever-new power and uni- versal adaptation by conspicuous fruits in character and in life among the people to whom he is sent. Such fruits in ample measure have vindicated and inspired our work in India. I can give only a few specimens. One such illustration of intellectual and spiritual manhood grown on heathen soil — to which I have referred in other chapters — is Hasan Raza Khan,* Presiding Elder of the Kasganj District of the Northwest India Conference. I name him here again in order to record a single fact illustrative of *See pages 159 and 162. 136 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. his habitual spirit of consecration to his one work, as stated by Dr. Goucher. " He isHving on forty rupees (about thirteen dol- lars) a month, and trusting the people of his district to give it. He is a man among men, respected by foreigners and natives alike. Because of his intel- ligence and influence he was appointed one of the Board of Commissioners of her majesty's govern- ment for the zillah in which he lives. Appreciating his ability and integrity, the Board of Commission- ers said to him one day : ' We have chosen you as secretary to this board. Your work shall be limited to five hours per day ; we will give you one hun- dred and twenty-five rupees per month ' (more than three times what he was getting) ' and the position will bring you large influence. ' He promptly replied, without the slightest change of countenance, ' I am secretary to the Lord Jesus, and I cannot accept any other office.' That is an illustration of the power of God to so transform a Mohammedan's heart that he is able to account the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of India." When I was at the Fatehganj District Confer- ence I saw indications of the rich fruit of the work under the care of another presiding elder, whose life abounds in " facts stranger than fiction," the account of which so magnifies the grace of God re- vealed in India that I asked Dr. E. W. Parker to furnish me its chief events in writing, which he did, as follows : SOME INDIA FRUITS. 137 " Abraham Solomon is a Jew. By some mis- fortune in the transportation of goods from India through the wild mountain passes into Afghanistan he lost all his property. In this condition he wan- dered to Moradabad, and providentially fell in with Rev. Zahur ul Haqq, who had lately been converted from Mohammedanism. The conversation between this new convert to Christianity and this Jew nat- urally turned upon religious subjects. The Mo- hammedan convert had just given up one book, the Koran, which claims to be a part of God's revelation, because it did not agree in any respect with the former books ; but when he met a man who did not receive the Gospel either he was greatly disturbed. In his new faith he could not see how the Old Testament could meet our de- mands for salvation without the New Testament, hence earnest discussion took place between these two men. " Brother Zahur ul Haqq said to me one day: " ' I think I could get that Jew converted if I could get him something to do, so that he would remain with us for a time.' " Learning that he was an excellent Hebrew scholar, I made work for him by engaging him to help me to review my Hebrew for a few weeks, and before the engagement was over the Jew was con- vinced that Jesus was the Messiah. " After his conversion he was soon convinced that his work was to be the preaching of this Mes- siah. Hence he gave up all thought of his business 138 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. plans, and studied to prepare himself for his new work. "After a time he married a very excellent Hin- dustani woman, and after some years of experience in the work he was appointed to Fatehganj where you met him. Very little work had been ac- complished there. There was a little school and there were a very few converts in the country around. He commenced his work thus almost alone in the midst of a very large field. " As his presiding elder I said to him at the be- ginning of one year: 'You will not accomplish much in a great field by working in a general way all over the field without any special object in view. My advice is to select for yourself some special field, which you can cultivate carefully until it brings forth fruit. If you visit a village and the people receive you kindly and show a real interest in your message, consider that to be a special open- ing for your work, and go to that village over and over, making friends and teaching the word.' "At my next visit to him, I asked, ' Have you selected a special work, as I suggested?' "'Yes,' he replied, ' I have selected twenty-two villages where the people have received me kindly and listened gladly to the word, and I am specially working in these villages.' " I smiled at the size of this ' special field,' and, noticing the smile, he replied with great earnest- ness : " ' Remember what I say, I will not cease work- SOME INDIA FRUITS. 139 ing in these villages until I have converts in every- one.' " He went on with his work, and the first time I asked about the villages he said he had converts in seven of them. Then I was called home to Amer- ica, but on my return, the first time I met Brother Solomon I asked : " ' How about the twenty-two villages?* " ' There are converts in eighteen of them,' he replied. "At the Quarterly Conference I noticed that we had converts from among the Brahmans, the Tha- kurs, and several other castes of the Hindus, down to the very lowest of the outcasts. These people had never come together before. They had been converted in their own villages. For the first time the Brahmans seemed to realize that they were connected with a community made up of all kinds and classes of people. I thought to myself, ' How can these classes be brought together to be one without confusion?' And all through the Quar- terly Meeting, as one after another spoke, and our high-caste brethren seemed to be more and more disturbed, my excitement increased. I noticed also that Brother Abraham was very anxious. At the close of the meeting, however, the last ' amen ' had hardly been said, when Brother Abraham said in a loud voice : " ' Brethren, dinner is all ready ; my wife has prepared dinner to-day for everybody, and we will all go out immediately to dinner.' 140 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. " I noticed that by some means the outside doors of the schooh'ooms, where our meeting was held, were closed, and the only way of exit was through the rooms of Brother Abraham. So all went to- gether and gathered around the large mat spread with a bountiful dinner, and ate together. There could be no caste after this public eating together, and the difficult problem was at once solved. There has never been any caste difficulty in that Christian community since. I mention this, as it shows the wisdom of this man in his work. " While Brother Solomon was securing his con- verts in the twenty-two villages, God gave him suc- cess in a great many other places also, so that at the end of one year there were converts in just one hundred villages. Class leaders were appointed for every village, so that we had one hundred class leaders. " After one more successful year Brother Solo- mon, who had really made for himself a district, was appointed presiding elder. The work is now carried on in five hundred and fifty-nine different villages, and the converts have increased to six thousand nine hundred and fifty-five." I had the pleasure of meeting two men yet to be named in this chapter, and to learn the salient facts about them, thus vividly stated in an address by Dr. Goucher : " Samuel Tupper is the pastor of a circuit at Hardoi. His ancestors belonged to the scavenger, or lowest caste, and SQ he was doomed by the caste SOME INDIA FRUITS. 141 laws to be a scavenger. There was no power on earth which could have caused him to rise out of his caste and become anything but a scavenger; but there was a power in heaven which could trans- form and elevate him. A few years ago he was running around clad in the somewhat inadequate folds of a single string, worn for protection against ' the evil eye ; ' for the majority of the children of his caste, until they are five or six years old, are usually clad in nothing but their complexion, except occasionally when they wear a smile. He was brought into one of our schools and showed himself eager and apt to learn. He went from form to form ; passed through the high school and went to the theological school. He was graduated there relatively an educated man with a cultured intellect and great consecration. " I have been frequently impressed with the fact that many of these India Christians possess four things directly the gift of God : they have a per- sonal experience ; they know God, and they know that they know him ; they have a personal commis- sion— God always gives a commission to every per- son to whom he gives an experience — they have a fixed purpose to accomplish their commission, and any man who does not have a purpose to persist- ently pursue his commission loses both his experi- ence and his commission ; and they have success. Because their purpose keeps their effort in line with God's commission he crowns their lives with success. 142 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. " Samuel Tupper was sent to Hardoi to open Christian work there. That zillah is forty miles square, and contains about nine hundred thousand native heathen. When he went to the bazaar he might tell the venders what he wanted, but then he had to put down his basket and step back while the man put into it what he pleased. Then the price was told him, and Tupper would lay his money down and walk off again. Though he was superior to any man in all that zillah — superior in intelligence, in culture, and in character — yet he had been born of a scavenger, and the bazaar men would not touch even money while Tupper touched it. It is a serious matter when the average man thinks money is too polluted to be touched. He found plenty of work among the people of his own caste to keep him happily occupied. He lived among them, and taught them by example as well as precept. After a while the bazaar men would say : ' Tupper, you need not walk away ; you are not like others of your caste ; we will take the money from your hand.' Later, on stormy days, when there was not much business doing, the bazaar men would say: 'Tupper, sit down, and tell us what you are teaching these people. Everybody who comes under your influence improves in clean- liness and becomes reliable.' Then, as they had invited him, he would preach in the bazaar Christ and the resurrection. " Tupper had the third blessing. We have heard a great deal about the first blessing, so called; that SOME INDIA FRUITS. 143 is, the blessing of justification. We have heard a great deal about the second blessing, so called ; that is, the blessing of sanctification. Some people try to get the second blessing before they get the first ; but it never comes that way. Some get the first so thoroughly that those who have not been told to the contrary never know they do not have both. But the third blessing is the rarest of them all. Sometimes it precedes the first and second, sometimes it comes after them, and very frequently it does not come at all in this life. It is the bless- ing of common sense. Tupper had the grace of God working with this great blessing of common sense. He did not try to resist the inevitable. He did not say, ' I am as good as you are, and you must treat me as I think I ought to be treated.' He knew his work, and he knew his Lord. He knew he was not set for his own defense, but to do the work of God. He accepted the conditions within which he found himself, and magnified God by being a son of peace, and the grace of God made the dark lines in his environment furnish the opportunities in which the high lights of his patient service shone most gloriously. "In 1890 the British government made careful inquiries to find some one who was sufificiently well educated, and who was thoroughly reliable, to take the census in that zillah. Many said, * If you can get Tupper to accept the office the work will be well done.' He was appointed, and that made it his duty to go into the home of every Brahman and 10 144 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. ask him, among other things, how many daughters he had. The queen herself could not have asked a question more confusing to caste prejudice. " Then there is Joseph Jordan. He did not go through the theological school, but went through the college, and is a teacher. For two years in succession every student whom he sent up to the government examinations from the Moradabad High School, where he is second head master, passed. This caused quite a sensation among the Brahman and Mohammedan teachers; so they had large posters printed setting forth that Jordan was the son of a scavenger; that if he should correct one of the high-caste boys, it would pollute him ; and if high-caste parents subjected their children to his influence they would be in danger of the wrath of the gods ; and many other such things. They had these posted all over the city, and when Jor- dan went to school the next morning he saw on the two doorposts, at the entrance of his school, these posters confronting him, as they did all the scholars that entered. He consulted with one of our mis- sionaries as to what action he should take, and was told : ' You are not set for your own vindication ; you are set for the defense of the Gospel, and God is pledged for your defense.' 'Give place unto wrath; for vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.' Jordan possessed the third blessing, and he went into the school without a word, taught as though nothing unusual had occurred, dismissed his school, and the scholars came the next day and SOME INDIA FRUITS. 145 the day after, and all went on :is usual. But the posters attracted attention, and the Mohammedan and high-caste gentlemen of the city said : ' What does all this mean? Who is this Jordan, and why are these things being posted about him just now?' It was replied that for the last two years every boy who had gone from his school to take the govern- ment examinations had passed, and that these posters had been printed by the Brahman and other teachers because they thought the attendance at their schools might be injured by his success. 'All,' said these shrewd men, 'is that so; every boy ? ' ' Yes.' * Then that is where we will send our boys ; for what we want is to be sure they will pass the government examinations ;' and the attend- ance increased within a month so that from that time to this his school has been self-supporting, and has not needed a rupee of missionary money. "There was a girl, the daughter of a scavenger, who came into one of our schools and passed from form to form till she was graduated, an earnest Christian young woman. Then she went to Agra, to the Lady Dufferin Medical College, and was graduated there, and returned to Moradabad about the time that Jordan was graduated. People had often said to him, 'Why don't you marry?' But his reply was, ' I have not time. I am studying.' She was more frequently asked the same question, and her reply was about the same. By one of those carefully adjusted providences by which God delights to help his own, the chief nurse of the 146 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. Lady Dufferin Hospital at Moradabad was taken ill, and there were some very critical cases needing specially careful attention. The physicians said, ' We must have somebody who is trained to take this place at once.' Some one suggested : ' There is a young woman in the city who has recently been graduated from the medical college at Agra. Maybe she might be secured for a week till we can find some one else.' She was asked, and consented to serve in the emergency ; but at the end of the week the physicians said, ' We cannot let her go ; she must stay at least a month longer.' So she stayed, and they made her head nurse of the hos- pital, giving her one hundred and twenty-five ru- pees a month ; and she and Jordan, according to an arrangement made when they were children, got married. It was the same old story — praise the Lord ! — and is repeating itself with delightful fre- quency. Mrs. Jordan still holds that position, and treats the Brahman women, the American mission- aries, and the foreigners of the city, thoroughly re- spected by all because of her Christian character and scientific skill." HOW OUR MISSIONARIES LIVE. 147 CHAPTER XIX. How our Missionaries Live. FIRST of all, many of our missionaries on the great highway of travel live in a state of mild fear of " globe trotters," that is, Americans and Europeans who come to India in the winter, when, as Bishop Thomson describes it, " the climate is fit for angels ; " who, even if they profess to be Christians and friends of missions, are some of them much more concerned about the Taj, with its marvelous arches, from which the jewels have been stolen, than about the imperishable jewels which Christian love has picked up out of the dust of heathenism ; and who, after a month's hasty obser- vation, sometimes go home to declare oracularly that they saw very little indication of missionary progress, and even to quote the statements of for- eigners who, while at home, were enemies of Christ, and of course in India think of missionaries as well-meaning but worthless people. The truth is that in any country travelers are apt to find what they most assiduously look for. Abun- dant facts prove to me that the above description is no caricature of not a few travelers in India who ought to be first of all concerned about the progress of Christianity. Such observers are quite likely to speak of missionaries as dwelling in " palaces," and 148 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. living in ease and " luxury ;" but I am happy to say that after considerable observation I cannot confirm such statements. I have been a guest in twenty-three missionary homes in India. The first was that of Bishop Tho- burn, who lives in fairly spacious and comfortable apartments on the top of a church, reached by a stairway with forty-five steps. In Bombay and Calcutta the residences of some of our missionaries are built in the style of houses in large cities, be- cause of the limitation of space ; but in most places I have found very large and beautiful " com- pounds," often containing several acres, where land is exceedingly cheap or was acquired by donation — an arrangement exceedingly to be desired, because of the need of air and shade in this hot country. A good mission house costs from fifteen hundred to twenty-five hundred dollars. It is built of bricks laid in mud mortar. The walls are plastered with lime and whitewashed ; the ceiling is of cloth, the roof of bamboo and tiles. Some of the newer houses have roofs of masonry arches, on iron gird- ers, which are usually railway rails. The mission house has a sitting room, dining room, office, guest room, and two other sleeping rooms. The ceilings are from fifteen to twenty feet high, and the rooms are large, because of the excessive heat during the summer months. Most houses have deep veran- das. The cook house, servants' houses, and stable are at a distance from the house. To a stranger the question of furnishing so large HOW OUR MISSIONARIES LIVE. 149 a house would sccin a very difficult one ; but the furnishings and draperies are, according to Amer- ican standards, exceedingly inexpensive. One of our missionaries, returning for a furlough and vis- iting an old friend in a three-room parsonage in Montana, saw in his parlor a piano which cost more than the entire furnishings of the house the mis- sionary had recently left. After careful inquiry in several places, I am sure that half the cost of fur- nishing the parlor only, in an average Methodist parsonage in New York or Chicago, would com- pletely furnish any one of the twenty-three mis- sionary homes I saw in India. The Missionary Society allows one hundred dol- lars to each house for heavy furniture. The floors are covered with date matting costing from two to three cents a square yard. Very cheap rugs, called dtirrics, are laid over the matting on portions of the most used rooms. The furniture is mostly of bamboo work, and the draperies of very cheap but pretty native fabrics. The servants in such a home are a cook, a bearer (who looks after the house and waits on the table), a sweeper, a water carrier, and a syce (who takes care of the horse). If there are small children in the house there must be also an ayah, or children's nurse. The poorest people who have houses keep these servants. The rich have many more. So large a number of servants is necessary, owing to the fact that servants will do only the work of their own departments. You cannot induce the cook to 150 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. bring water, nor the waiter to sweep, even by offer- ing double wages. They simply will not do what is out of their line. The cost of five or six servants is not more than ten or fifteen dollars a month, without food. During from six to eight months of the year, be- cause of the intense heat, it is necessary to employ from two to four coolies to pull punkahs (fans sus- pended from the ceiling by ropes, and pulled from the veranda). These coolies receive from three to four cents a day each, without food, and can live on two cents a day. From October to April the missionaries rise at about six o'clock, have chota haziri, that is, a cup of tea and a slice of toast ; then the work of the day begins. The family meet at ten or eleven for breakfast ; again for tea at two o'clock ; and for dinner at six or half-past seven, according to the convenience of the workers. From April to October they rise at about half- past four, and complete all outdoor work at ten or eleven, often remaining indoors because of the in- tense heat till five o'clock. The thermometer dur- ing the greatest heat often stands at 175° in the sun, 117° in the shade, and 102° in the house. The doors are closed at eight in the morning and opened at six in the evening. Because of this heat the rooms must be large. By using tatties, doors made of grass and kept wet, the temperature in large rooms may be kept below 100° during the greatest heat of the day. HOW OUR MISSIONARIES LIVE. 151 The rains begin the last week of June and con- tinue till the end of September. The heat during these months is very trying, because it is moist and debilitating. Many ladies and children and some men have to go to "hill stations," like Naini Tal, during the intense heat, but the majority remain at their posts. Such, in brief, is a candid statement of my obser- vations as to how our missionaries in India live. How they work I cannot now attempt to describe. Many of them, as I have reason to know, work be- yond their strength, as good men and women in other countries are wont to do when they see measureless opportunities of richly rewarding work demanding their attention every day and every hour. We have eleven missionaries in India (sev- eral of whose wives still survive and are zealous workers) who have been at their posts more than thirty-five years ; and quite a number besides, more than twenty-five years. Of the several scores whom I have met and talked with freely I did not find one who was willing to leave the country for any reason save of health ; and I find many who, after needed and merited furloughs, have returned to their life work with great joy. Considering the nature and hardships of their work, the heathenism with which they are in per- petual struggle, their expatriation from their dear home country and the home Church, the intense heat of the climate for eight months in the year, plague and cholera and fevers and other diseases 152 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. against which they have constantly to stand guard, the isolation of many of them from the priceless delights of Christian sympathy ; and considering tlie noble successes in educational and evangelistic work which they have achieved and are increas- ingly achieving, I can say from the heart — God bless our missionaries in India. And it seems to me that the Church in lands more highly favored need not envy them their plain, spacious, simple, comfortable homes. t I ! SELF-SUPRORT. 153 CHAPTER XX. Self-support. GOD'S message to races, nations, and com- nuinities, as well as to individuals, is, " Work out your own salvation." America can never save India; England can never save India; if India is ever saved it must under God be saved by India. Japan must be saved by Japan ; the Negro race by the Negro race. The most that can ever be done from the outside is to lend a hand to help until the saving work has fairly begun. The jealousy of foreign influence in religious mat- ters manifested in various mission fields, and most unreasonably and offensively in Japan, is all based upon a just instinct. There is but " one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus;" other mediators can only lead men to him until a Christian community is established and becomes strong enough to stand alone. Until such develop- ment is reached, the obligation of the Christian Church to its foreign missions is manifest and posi- tive ; but from the beginning the Church must make arrangements for such development leading to such outcome. The child must become an inde- pendent man. As a babe he must be carried, and tended, and nourished ; as a child, taught, guided, 154 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. reproved, and trained ; and at length as a young man, wisely launched. The problems thus suggested are among the gravest in missionary enterprise. American Meth- odism must hold fast to India Methodism until India Methodism can stand alone. Is that all? O, no ! India Methodism must be able to walk and run alone, and with giant strides address itself to one of the most stupendous problems ever com- mitted to the Christian Church, the evangelization, conversion, and upbuilding of three hundred mil- lions of heathen and Mohammedans. America and Great Britain are therefore under a vast responsibility to India. We cannot let go or loosen our hold until Christianity is marching for- ward all over India, "conquering" and manifestly " to conquer." Until then we must furnish foreign missionaries enough for effective guidance, for in- spiration, and for example ; and money enough for the " sinews of war," in carrying on educational, philanthropic and evangelistic work. Yet, all the while, the effort at self-support must be encouraged, and the best methods of self-sup- port assiduously taught. In the long run, the one way really to help men is to teach them how to help themselves ; and the same is true of communities, nations, and Churches. It is manifest that the obligation of this great fundamental truth has be- come more and more clear to the missionary societies, and that the views of our own Missionary Society on this matter have been gradually ma- SELF-SUPPORT. 155 tured. Our greatest embarrassment in relation to it has been met with in Roman Catholic countries. Romanists carelessly take for granted that if they turn away from their own Church, Protestants ought to do everything for them. On this point the heathen are wiser and more self-reliant. The self-support idea flourishes better in India than in Italy or Mexico ; indeed, its growth in India is very encouraging. The first and most important object lesson on self-support which came under my eye in India was at the Hathras camp meeting. In connection with the services of that meeting it had been arranged to hold two District Conferences simul- taneously, one under the presidency of the presid- ing elder, J. E. Scott, an American missionary, and the other under the presidency of Hasan Rasa Khan, a native presiding elder who was originally a high-caste Mohammedan, and who has been for many years one of our most efficient pastors and presiding elders. On Saturday morning self-sup- port meetings were held for both these districts. At the first of these there were present about six hundred men, women, and children, all sitting on the ground under a large tent. The men and boys were in fifteen bands, by circuits, each having at its head a rude band of music with very odd and in- harmonious native instruments. At first the whole fifteen sets played and sang all at once, different tunes in mongrel dialect ; all in praise of Christ. Then all sang together a fine Christian hymn, and 156 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. at the close of each verse Dr. Scott led them in the loud shout of " Yishu, Jai " (" Victory to Jesus," or "Glory to Jesus"). The native president and secretary then called the circuits in order and reported the contributions made during the year for self-support. Many reported gifts of chickens, pigs, baskets, eggs, winnowing fans, goats, small quantities of various grains ; and two of the preach- ers reported gifts of cow dung in these collections. This leads me to say that in various parts of India the collection of cow dung out of the streets and fields is a common industry for women, who mould it into flat cakes with their hands and plaster these against the sides of their mud huts until dried, and then carry the cakes to market to be sold for fuel. The aggregate self-support collection was six pice (three cents) for each of the members, proba- tioners, and adherents of the Church. When this movement began Presiding Elder Scott said that one pice each would be a good result. Inspiring hymns were sung, earnest prayers were offered, stimulating and sensible speeches were made by several natives, and a special hymn was used, written for the occasion by Rev. Chimman Lai. Then the collection was taken, in which contribu- tions very similar to those above referred to were laid upon the table, including several pieces of cheap jewelry, many pecks of grain of various kinds, and one little goat, all of which were sold at auction at the close of the service. SELF-SUPPORT. 157 The special hymn was as follows . "SELF-SUPPORT" HYMN. (Translated from the Hindustani of Rev. Chimman Lai.) Hear, brother, and think on this : To give is more blessed than to receive. CHORUS. Give your offerings, brother ; and if you cannot do that, Speak out for self-support. Whatever water you take from a well. Double will remain. Try it and see. The light of your gifts reaches to heaven, A light not like that of a candle. What is yours ? It all is his. Bow body and soul to Christ. Do not be proud of your wealth or careless ; But look to Christ and be filled with his love. When the death angel comes for your soul, Prone will you lie, hands and feet extended. Life comes, stays, goes from the world. When once it has gone it never returns. Sabir has seated himself and spread his blanket ; Quickly come, brothers, and bring your collections. At the session of the Northwest India Confer- ence, which includes these two districts, Agra and Kasganj, one of the chief meetings was the "Self- support Anniversary," which was looked forward to with the keenest interest. That interest was intensi- fied by the previous meeting of the Finance Com- mittee, in which it was found that if they provided for the existing work with the strictest economy, 153 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. thirty-seven hundred rupees were still needed in order to avoid the dismissal of many native work- ers, and thus the abandonment of a large number of recently baptized converts. This, it was felt by all the presiding elders assembled, as well as by Bishop Thoburn, Dr. Goucher, and my self, zue coti/d not do with our eyes on the Judgment Seat ; so everyone present contributed liberally to make up the deficit. Almost every presiding elder pledged one tenth of his salary for the coming year ; while all felt a wonderful sense of God's im- mediate presence, and a spiritual refreshment amounting almost to rapture. When this was reported at the informal evening prayer meeting, around the supper tables, other missionaries in- .sisted on making offerings for the same purpose, several teachers of the Woman's Foreign Mission- ary Society pledging one hundred rupees each. At the Self-support Anniversary the intensest enthusiasm prevailed. Reports were made from all the districts in the Conference of what had been done for self-support during the year. Hymns, addresses, and prayers, all relating to the same subject, were offered, and the chief native apostle of this movement, Hasan Rasa Khan, asked those of his preachers and Bible readers who were ready to stand with him on the platform of entire self- support, to come forward. Twenty-two came, and at the close of the meeting another native pre- siding elder cheerfully stepped out on the same platform. SELF-SUPPORT. 159 The following brief extracts are only hints of the addresses which would have electrified any audi- ence in America. Rev. H. R. Khan, presiding elder, said : " I made up my mind a few years ago that I would not put my faith in American rupees. While I was on the Missionary Society I never owned a cow or bison ; but since I have been on self-support I have three cows and a bison, and have not lacked for anything. The first two years I was on self-support there were only two of our workers that stood with me. Last year there were six, now there arc twenty-two on self-support in my district. The time will come when the Church in India will do its own work." Rev. Isaac Franklin said : " I won't call it self- support, I will call it Hindustani work. At the self-support meeting held, some gave cattle, women gave their shawls and jewelry, men gave grain and other things ; whatever they had that they could possibly spare. The chickens were so down-hearted in our community that they would not crow ; but after they had been given in so good a cause they crowed nearly all the time." Rev. H. Clancy said : " Everybody in our employ gives to the work of the mission. The women who sweep and work in the garden receive five pice a day, and of this they give one pice a week. All the mission workers in my district give two pice from every rupee which they receive. The children in the orphanage get one pound of flour or meal 11 160 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. per day, and give about two ounces per week as their offering. The boys take their offering of flour or meal in a basket to church, and at the close of the service bring it before the altar ; and the girls come forward and pour their savings of flour or meal into the same basket." In the several Annual Conferences, Dr. Goucher, in full and constant consultation with myself, had been preparing the way by conversations and ad- dresses for the plan set forth in the following reso- lutions of the Central Conference, passed after care- ful deliberation and with full confidence in the growing success of the movement ; and constituting the most advanced action, so far as I know, yet taken concerning this subject in any of our mission fields: " Pastoral Support and Grant-in-aid. " The Grant-in-aid plan shall be adopted in all circuits and subcircuits in which Christians reside, according to the following plan : "The sum to be collected on each circuit shall be apportioned by the Finance Committee of the Annual Conference, and the payment of this appro- priation shall be conditioned on the payment by the circuit of the sum apportioned, unless modified by the Finance Committee. If only a part of the ap- portionment is raised by the circuit or station, then only a like proportion of the appropriation shall be paid by the Treasurer of the Conference. " Where the organization of the circuits require SELF-SUPPORT. 161 it, the amount apportioned to the circuit shall be redivided among the several subcircuit or village preachers, by the Quarterly Conference, with the approval of the presiding elder, " To secure the payment of the apportionments, an earnest and persistent effort in every circuit, sub- circuit, and village must be made to induce every Christian and inquirer to pay a stated amount peri- odically according to his ability. To make this plan efficient the forms for collector and circuit treasurer's books herewith attached shall be used. " Each presiding elder shall submit to the treas- urer of his Conference a half-yearly statement showing the total apportionment to each circuit of his district and the amount actually paid by each ; and the treasurer shall make the necessary deduc- tions, if any, from his succeeding payments. A copy of each report shall also be submitted to the next meeting of the Finance Committee by the presid- ing elder. " The collecting agency shall be the disciplinary one through class leaders and stewards, or such financial committee as the Quarterly Conference may appoint." It must not, however, be carelessly taken for granted that such movements toward self-support can, in their early stage, bring any considerable relief to our general treasury. The most they can do for a while is to prevent the curtailment of the native evangelistic work, and possibly to extend that work somewhat where many thousands are ready 162 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. to come forward for baptism. Hasan Raza Khan, in his report as Presiding Elder of the Kasganj District, thus presents the subject to the Annual Conference : " The word of God is true. Ask and it shall be given you, and knock and it shall be opened unto you. Thanks be to the Lord for a new year of health and power to work. Whenever I have asked him, he has given me. For the last few years the workers in the Kasganj District have prayed and worked with heart and soul for four things. " The four things are : that every Christian in this district should be filled with the Holy Ghost ; that every native Christian should pay for Jesus Christ whatever he can, out of his income ; that our Christians should be taught to read and write, and read the Bible ; and that the teaching of the Bible may spread in other nations, that they, receiving the truth, may be baptized. " In the beginning of the year I had made up my mind not to increase the number of new baptisms, but to improve the spiritual and intellectual con- dition of our people. We formed this idea only for two reasons : firstly, because a famine was spreading, and secondly, because the number of workers was insufficient. We gave more attention to the education and instruction of the village Christian community as well as of the old con- verts ; but still the number of baptisms for this year is one thousand two hundred and twenty-six. " I came to learn from the reports of the preach- SELF-SUPPORT. 163 ers in charge, as well as my own personal experi- ence, that about ten or fifteen thousand persons could at once be baptized ; and besides these, thou- sands of true seekers are found. I am very much perplexed as to how the work can be maintained ; for every year a decrease in money from America takes place, and the work is rapidly increasing and cannot be limited or stopped. About forty or fifty congregations have no teachers at present, and members come to us and ask for teachers. Others send similar requests, telling us that the mission has forgotten them. They cry out that they with their children are left in ignorance. They are con- stantly asking us for pastor-teachers to tell them of Christ. Hearing these constant requests we wish to send teachers to them, but when we ask our- selves how the teachers are to be paid, we are sorry and silent. I want to take the advice of my pastors and benefactors, in this heavy and important task, as to how the work should be carried on. Most of the congregations have no teachers, and there are thousands of seekers. We do not require good preachers for this work, but we want some pastor- teachers on six rupees monthly each. We have a number of young workers ready with us who can at once be put to work. These will discharge the duties well. They will teach the children of the new converts daily ; and will teach the Bible also to the converts in the morning and evening. One pastor-teacher is enough to look after one hundred Christians. The work is heavy and necessary, and 164 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. requires immediate attention. Please make haste to help us." The latest word from India on this subject which has reached me is the following letter from the Rev. Rockwell Clancy to Mr. Blackstone, the gen- erous founder of the Deaconess Training Insti- tute, at Muttra : " My Dear Brother : Our Finance Committee recently held its mid-year session to consider the financial situation and to prepare estimates for 1899 to be sent to the Missionary Society. Our com- mittee is made up of the presiding elders and five elected members. There are nine American and five native members, representing every department of the work in the Northwest India Conference. The ladies' committee of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society met at the same time. " The first important matter brought before the committee was a debt of nearly $15,000 on our current work, accumulated for several years. The debt arose because our work has outgrown the ability of the Missionary Society to support it. The money given by the society has been supple- mented by Bishop Thoburn's Special Fund; and the amount promised by Bishop Thoburn is en- tirely conditioned on his receiving it. The receipts of the Special Fund have not been sufficient to pay the amount promised, hence a debt of $15,000. " For the past two years we have had the worst famine of this century ; and we felt that we could not turn our preachers and teachers away from the SELF-SUPPORT. 165 work to face starvation. But we have now reached the place where we must dismiss workers or go further into debt. Several members of the com- mittee proposed to close nearly all the work in the Punjab and Rajputana, entirely withdrawing our preachers from all but a few stations. We have about six thousand Christians in Rajputana, and about one thousand five hundred in the Punjab, who would be left without pastors. Many of them would certainly go back to heathenism if their pastors were withdrawn. Others propose to dis- miss workers from every district. " We have in the Northwest India Conference 50,000 Christians, for whose pastoral care there are 15 foreign missionaries, 13 wives of missionaries, 12 Woman's Foreign Missionary Society ladies, 17 assistants, 37 native members of Conference, 173 local preachers, 253 exhorters, 258 Christian teach- ers, 199 Bible readers, and 52 colporteurs and others ; total, 1,029 paid workers. We cannot dismiss our preachers who are in charge of the circuits, and to dismiss our pastor-teachers and Bible readers would be to leave our weak Christians untaught. " Thousands of Christians have only just emerged from the grossest heathenism. They are supersti- tious, and are surrounded by heathen relatives and neighbors who are doing all in their power to draw them back into idolatry. Our Christians are invited to heathen feasts ; and it is not strange that many of them should frequently fall into idolatry. To leave them alone would be worse than never to 166 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. have baptized them. We have led them out of the densest darkness, but terrible influences are con- stantly exerted upon them to draw them back. What can we do to save our people? The situa- tion is lamentable, and but for the grace of God we would be discouraged. " Our very success is the cause of our debt. The utter indifference of millions of Church members in America with reference to the salvation of the heathen fills our heart with unutterable sadness; but we thank God for every one who has the mis- sionary spirit. " During the Committee meeting I roomed with an old missionary who has given most of his life to India. For two nights he was not able to sleep, because of the thought of abandoning our weak Christians to heathenism. The committee decided to cut down the work $2,000 for the rest of this year, which would mean the dismissal of two hun- dred pastor-teachers or a large number of preachers. We have decided to continue the work as it is for the present month. " O ! that I could roll the burden of these thou- sands of Christians upon the heart of the Church at home ! You can help us by telling others. Please use this letter. Our special fund is urgently in need of donations ; $30 to $50 a year supports a pastor-teacher, $20 a training student, and $15 an orphan. The famine left us about 2,000 orphans, for whose support we must have scholarships." Mr. Blackstone sends the following communica- SELF-SUPPORT. 167 tion to Dr. A. B. Leonard, missionary secretary, concerning this important and urgent matter: " I cannot tell you how oppressed I have been by the contents of the foregoing. Is it possible that our great Methodist Church, after the years of prayer at home and the patient labor in this great harvest field in India, should now allow this unprec- edented success which has been given to us, under the blessing of God, to slip from our hands, and seven thousand five hundred native Christians, with thousands of other inquirers, to be abandoned to the soul-destroying influences of heathenism, all for the want of $15,000? O! it makes my heart ache ! And I am sure it will not be allowed, if our Church can only know the circumstances." 168 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. CHAPTER XXI. In the Torrid Zone. Calcutta, Saturday, January 29, 1898. I AM just about to leave India proper; though Burma, where I hope to spend three or four days, is a part of the great British Empire. I cannot express in words, with pen or tongue, the very deep and constantly sustained interest which I have found in these weeks and days which I have spent in this marvelous country. My letters and articles have been so numerous and so long that my friends must have thought I was trying to get something off my mind; and I shall account myself happy if they can manage to receive from what I have written a hundredth part of the satisfaction I have had in what I have seen and heard. The voyage immediately before me is said by Bishop Thoburn, who has taken it many times, to be, at this season of the year, a very delightful one. The sea is likely to be calm, the skies clear, and the temperature entirely comfortable. I shall have not only a good ship, but good company. Our voyage of twelve or thirteen days will be interrupted by three or four days in Rangoon, and one day in Penang ; then Singapore, where we shall be almost under the equator — within ninety miles of it — and shall have a wonderfully rich and luxuri- IN THE TORRID ZONE. 169 ant flora, and shall be among people of almost all nations and languages. This morning we attended the regular Saturday morning prayer meeting in the church close to this bungalow, and found it a very refreshing and spirit- ual meeting. One old lady told of a friend of hers who was supporting herself and two Bible women by the toil of her own hands; and yet was singing almost all the day long and all the year round, be- cause she had found how to " glory in tribulation," and also that " g-l-o-r-y does not spell growl." Dr. Goucher and I have this morning called on the Viceroy of all India, in his very spacious but not magnificent palace. We found him a fine speci- men of a solid, elderly English gentleman, very courteous and affable, and looking as Secretary Stanton used to look. Dr. Goucher showed him his letter from President McKinley, and solicited a donation of some very valuable government reports and other books for the Woman's College of Bal- timore. We gave him some account of our mission- ary and school work in India, and seemed to enlist his real interest. He asked that Dr. Goucher's re- quest be preferred in writing, and cordially prom- ised to forward it to the proper authorities, saying that whatever the rules for the distribution of such books would permit should be cheerfully done. There is in this city a really great museum, especially rich in the departments of archaeology, ethnology, and natural history. In it I spent, with great interest, quite too small a part of the morning. 170 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. Rangoon, Burma, February 2, 1898. We arrived here to-day soon after noon, having left Calcutta on Sunday morning early. We had gone aboard the ship Malda, a nice twelve-hundred ton vessel, the night before. This we regretted, because it caused us an almost sleepless night on ac- count of the mosquitoes, which constantly annoyed us in our cabin. I did not go to sleep until after two o'clock in the morning, and then slept restlessly until sunrise. So we greatly regretted that we had not stayed under mosquito nets in the Calcutta par- sonage another night. But we had a good sleep in the afternoon of Monday, and made up the rest of our loss the next night. The journey of three days was very restful in- deed to me, after the constant engagements on land for so many weeks. The sea was perfectly calm and smooth all the time ; pleasant breezes kept us cool enough, in spite of the blazing sun over- head ; and the voyage was in all respects one to be pleasantly remembered. The rising and setting of the golden or crimson sun was really magnificent ; and the half moon stood almost directly overhead every evening. We had only about thirty first-class passengers, and a few whom we came to know in the second- class saloon. There were in the company twelve or fifteen of our missionaries and teachers, some of them returning to Penang and Singapore. We were very glad of the opportunity to become better ac- quainted with them, and to learn more fully about IN THE TORRID ZONE. 171 the important work they have in hand. There was also a Wcsleyan missionary from Mandalay, Burma, on board. The ship's table was really excellent in variety, in quality, and in service. We especially enjoyed the fruits — chiefly oranges, plantains, and papayas. They were all of the best of their kind. Among the passengers was a genuine earl — Earl Rosse of Ireland — whom we found out to be a son of the man of telescope fame. He was very chatty and intelligent, as were all the pas- sengers. Of course, having now left India, we naturally glance back over the weeks we spent in that won- derful country, and have been taking account of stock. I do not attend to figures in such matters as Dr. Goucher does. He has written his wife this week that he has traveled 7,500 miles in India, has attended 4 District Conferences, 3 camp meet- ings, 2 corner-stone layings, i dedication, 10 or 12 school examinations, and that he has made 122 addresses and preached 10 sermons. My figures must be very much the same as his, except that I have preached rather more sermons and made some- what fewer addresses. My previous letters have attempted to convey some impression of the intense interest I have felt in multitudes of things which 1 have seen and heard ; but they must have failed to give any adequate im- pression. When we call to mind the fact that we have moved about in all parts of the country, and 172 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. have been exposed, no doubt when we least thought of it, many times to " the pestilence that walketh in darkness, and the destruction that wast- eth at noonday" — that in sundry places cholera has had its victims, and is likely to break out anywhere in India in epidemic form at almost any season of the year ; that smallpox, always present in the cities, is especially a winter disease ; that fevers of various kinds have been extraordinarily prevalent during the recent months, particularly throughout Northern India, where we spent most of our time ; that the plague has risen in Bombay from a daily death-rate of five or six, when we first arrived, to one hundred and twenty-five now, and has claimed within the past eighteen months, since it first broke out, more than ninety thousand victims — we surely have occasion for abundant gratitude that we have been kept in perfect health, and have almost com- pleted our heavy labors with no flagging of strength. The manifold mercies of God have called forth our daily thanksgiving, and I feel sure that I personally have rendered thanks to God more frequently and heartily during the last four months than during any similar previous period in my life. Aside from such special personal mercies as I thus allude to, the contrasts which have constantly forced themselves upon my attention have fur- nished me particular occasions for thanksgiving. As we steamed down the Bay of Bengal of course the polar star gradually sank behind us, until it was lost to view and the Southern Cross arose. IN THE TORRID ZONE. 173 Since my first sight of that cross in Mexico I have noticed that travelers are impressed by it very dif- ferently. Bishop Hendrix says, concerning it : " I enjoyed the sight of the Southern Cross, which is visible only in the tropics. It is the sail- or's friend in southern seas, for, by observation taken of the star at the foot of the cross, he determines his latitude and longitude. It is composed of four bright stars, so arranged as to give it its name, and when vertical is instantly recognized in the firma- ment. The memory of the beautiful vision lingers as an inspiration." Mark Twain, however, laughs it to scorn as a fraud, and thinks it should be called the " southern kite." Max O'Rell was so disappointed at his first sight of it that he shakes his fist at it ever since. My impression is a sort of golden mean ; but I clearly think that the splendid cross which can be seen in this latitude in the Milky Way is far more beautiful. Steamship Lindula, between [ Penang AND Singapore, Feb. ii, 1898. \ Our steamer was to have left Rangoon on Sat- urday, but did not leave until Sunday afternoon ; so I had an opportunity to preach in the morning, and we came on board at three o'clock in the after- noon amid intense heat and discomfort. The registered tonnage of this ship — that is, its actual weight when empty — is two thousand one hundred and eighty tons; but it brought from Rangoon four thousand tons of rice in bags, one 174 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. thousand tons of which were discharged yesterday at Penang, where we took on one thousand tons of pepper. It is an immaculately clean ship, and very comfortable. There are only two other first-class passengers besides our company of six ; so each of us has a three-berth room to himself, Dr. Goucher's and mine having doors facing each other. The table is excellent, having an ample variety of good food, including generally two or three kinds of fruit for breakfast and dinner, at both of which meals we also generally have a course of curry and rice. The rice is always perfectly boiled, with the grains all separate. The curry is a stew of chick- en, beef, or mutton, and vegetables ; highly seasoned with " curry," which consists of turmeric, coriander seed, chili, and a half dozen other kinds of spices rubbed down together ; and sometimes with a very strong taste of pepper, so that it will burn your tongue. On this boat, however, we find it free from this objection and very good. The weather has been pretty hot, the thermom- eter rarely less than 83° in our stateroom in the early morning. Generally, however, on deck there is a good breeze, and we are very comfortable. I sleep on deck at night, as several other passengers do also. You are to think of me as arrayed in a very coarse brown suit of Assam silk, very light and cool. The officers and some other gentlemen wear white linen suits, which can be got in this re- gion for a dollar and a quarter each ; but one must IN THE TORRID ZONE. 175 have two or three dozen suits, because you can wear them only a day or two without washing. The weather on this trip has been very calm, the sea smooth, and our course almost always in sight of islands. It is a remarkable fact that after more than thirty days at sea since we left New York we have not had a single storm, and that on the rail- roads we have had no detention worth naming. I make this record very thankfully, after having trav- eled about twenty-two thousand miles. At Penang we struck a new coinage ; no more rupees, but dollars and cents. The dollar is a beau- tiful coin, probably of the same weight as the Mex- ican dollar, which also passes current here, and so is a little heavier than our silver dollar, and yet it is worth only forty-six cents. Penang, where we lay at anchor a night and a day, is an important port at the entrance of the Straits of Malacca, three hundred and eighty-one miles northwest from Singapore. We have a very interesting and promising mission work there, and our mission- aries are now with us on this ship going down to their Conference, which is to meet in Singapore to- morrow. I had there my first experience riding in a " jin- rikisha," a two-wheeled gig with a top, with a seat for two persons, and drawn by a single Chinaman, who trots at the rate of seven miles an hour, and will actually take one or two persons that distance in that time. We saw hundreds of these vehicles in the streets, and I noticed, as I expected to find, 13 176 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. that the Chinamen who draw them have a wonder- ful development of the muscles of the legs, and es- pecially of the calf. They sweat in the heat, but do not seem to get out of breath, and go every- where at the same swift trot. We passed through the bazaars, and were greatly interested to see the cosmopolitan character of the people Avho meet here, and to find a great variety of tropical fruits in the markets, many of them en- tirely new to me. We saw and smelt and tasted the renowned " durian." We also saw and ate what the English call " hair fruit." It is about the size of a large hen's egg, of a beautiful red color, and is covered on every side with what looks like coarse hair sticking out. Inside there is a mucilaginous, gray-white pulp clinging closely to the central pit, and really very delicious. AN ESSAY ON CROWS, LIZARDS, ETC. 177 CHAPTER XXII. An Essay on Crows, Lizards, Etc. Dedicated by a world-ranging tramp (alias " Globe Trotter," known in oriental lands as " Foss Sahib ") to his beloved wife, to whom he would not presume on any account to send a typewritten letter; intended, also, for the informa- tion of any friends whom her ladyship may graciously permit to read it. BURMA is very different from the parts of India we have seen before. The climate is much warmer on the average than that of most parts of India, for though the summer is no hotter, the win- ter is not nearly so cold. The houses and the peo- ple are very different. Most of the houses are built of teak wood, and are left unpainted, or painted brown. They are set up on posts ten feet high, to keep them out of the mud and to diminish the danger of fevers in the rainy season. The parsonage in which I am stay- ing is of this description, and entirely open under- neath. There are broad windows or blinds on every side of the house, for the utmost possible ven- tilation. The nights just now in midwinter are very com- fortable, hardly requiring a blanket on the bed. From eleven o'clock in the morning until four or five in the afternoon it is very warm, probably above 178 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. We see a great many lizards crawling about the ceilings of the different rooms, and frequently hear the merry chirp of their voices while they are hunt- ing flies, which chirp is so loud that you cannot fail to hear it in the midst of any conversation. They are said to drop down on people's heads and faces now and then, and cause a peculiarly cold feel- ing. I have not experienced that yet, and am pro- tected at night by a mosquito net. The crows are all about the trees of this beauti- ful compound, and every morning and evening, ap- parently when they are going to bed or getting up for the day, they hold a very noisy pow-wow. The caws of thousands burst forth in incessant and over- powering chatter for about half an hour at a time. In this compound we have a great variety of trop- ical trees and fruits ; the tamarind, jack, peepul, bamboo, mango, banyan, cocoanut palm, pineapple shrub, and many others. The jack fruit grows high up on the sides of the large branches and gets to be as large as a fair-sized watermelon. One entertainment to which the missionaries in India and Burma are frequently called, and which they find most unwelcome, is boils. A considera- ble per cent of missionaries are afflicted with them more or less every year, and sometimes they are a dreadful trial, not only to their sensibilities, but to their health. Babies are sometimes born with them, and little children often suffer with them frightfully. My host has had them as one serious symptom of a decline, because of which he is speed- AN ESSAY ON CROWS, LIZARDS, ETC. 179 ily to return to America. He tells me that at one time he had more than a hundred at once, many of them larger than a half dollar. The natives, how- ever, laugh at people who get them and say, " O ! if you have boils you are going to grow fat." Burma is one great seat of the Buddhist religion, and might almost be termed a country full of pago- das. One of the largest, most expensive, and sa- cred pagodas in the world is right here in Rangoon, one in Ceylon being said to be its only real rival. We saw it and passed all around it yesterday. It might be described as a vast pyramid, about three hundred feet square, and my guidebook says three hundred and seventy feet in height, which is higher than St. Paul's Cathedral in London. It is covered with gold leaf, and the colossal upper part of it with solid gold set with jewels. I cannot fitly de- scribe it, but shall bring photographs of it home with me. I fear the word pyramid is misleading. From the bottom it slopes rapidly inward, and rises with peculiar and very striking architecture somewhat in the form of a great broad-based spire. It is solid throughout, except a small subterranean passage which is said to lead to the place where its most sacred relics are enshrined, the chief of which is a golden box containing eight hairs of Guatama, who was the last incarnation of Buddha. In numerous shrines all around the base of the pa- goda there are statues of Buddha, most of them colossal, sitting cross-legged. They are made of alabaster or of brass and they are almost countless 180 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. in number. These shrines are themselves smaller pagodas of similar shape to the great one. The religion of the people seems to consist largely in building pagodas and offering some form of wor- ship in them. Excepting a few of immense size, they have no concern to keep up the old pagodas, but let them fall to ruin, and build new ones ; for those who build new ones get credit with the gods, while the credit of repairing old ones goes to those who first built them. Of course we saw multitudes of priests, a few of them homely, haggard-looking old ivomen, smoking cigars which in size and shape resembled molded sperm candles. The writer of this miscellaneous essay, with such a multitude of topics, thinks it wise just here to in- sert an item which might better befit a letter. Last evening we went to the prayer meeting, where there were present about one hundred and fifty persons — English, Eurasians, and a few natives — and had a very enjoyable religious hour. Bishop Foss read and expounded the last chapter of the Epistle to the Philippians, and Bishop Thoburn and Dr. Goucher made addresses. We then went into the English-speaking school carried on by two ladies of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, named Miss Wisner and Miss Keeler, the former of whom is just about to return to America for a needed furlough. We took tea with them and had quite a reception, the hall being decorated with many flags, prominent among which was " Old Glory." For variety, at this meeting addresses were deliv- AN ESSAY ON CROWS, LIZARDS, ETC. 181 ered by Bishop Thoburn, Dr. Gouchcr, and Bisliop Foss. To-day we have lunched with the ladies at the school, and have seen the school gathered to- gether, and had short addresses to the children from the same three dignitaries. To wander back to India for a moment. I must remark on the absurd custom of the English class distinction which has found its way from the " home country" to this region so cursed by caste. "Soci- ety " in India is regulated after the strictest possi- ble fashion, and no "shopkeeper" can be invited to dine or be on terms of familiar acquaintance in many a home where all clergymen, missionaries, army officers, and "merchants" are welcome. So it happens that one of the wealthiest, most liberal, and most intelligent men in India — who has made a great fortune, being probably a millionaire, and is the proprietor of very large stores in Bombay, Cal- cutta, and many other cities in India and Burma, one or two of which seem to me pretty nearly half the size of John Wanamaker's — cannot be invited to dine in anything called "society" in India, simply because he sells goods by retail and not by whole- sale. 182 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. CHAPTER XXni. Burma as a Mission Field. THE unique lifcwork of Adoniram Judson many years ago laid the name of Burma on the heart of the Christian world. My recent visit to its chief seaport — Rangoon — in company with Bishop Thoburn and Dr. Goucher, to inspect our work there, led me to think of Burma as one of the most peculiar and interesting mission fields occupied by any Church. The country is the most prosperous anywhere in British India. Its soil is exceedingly fertile, and its commerce abundant ; the chief exports in very large quantities being rice — of which the ship by which I went from Rangoon to Singapore carried four thousand tons — and teak tim- ber, which has a very special value in oriental lands because it is almost the only building timber not eaten by white ants. The wages of the laborers in Burma are more than three times as high as in Northern India. Edu- cation is generally diffused ; social and domestic life is freer and happier than in most parts of India ; there are no distinctions of caste ; the rights of women are much more generally respected, and in many cases they hold the family purse, and even engage in trade and accumulate property independ- ently of their husbands. The population of this BURMA AS A MISSION FIELD. 183 comparatively small country is steadily increasing, and now exceeds eight millions. The prevailing religion in Burma is Buddhism, while that of the most of India is Brahmanism, out of which Buddhism arose in the spirit of reform about B. C. 500, and made its way not by force, like Mohammedanism, but by the superiority and at- tractiveness of its doctrines. Brahmanism and Buddhism are closely interwoven, and have reacted upon each other, and yet are very different. Brahmanism might almost be described as being all theology, since it makes God every- thing, and everything God ; whereas Buddhism is no theology at all ; and, indeed, some of its most careful students say it is no religion, but only a sys- tem of duty, morality, and benevolence, without any personal God, any real priest (as that term is generally used), or any prayer in the sense of peti- tion or supplication. The Buddhist never really prays, but tries to occupy his mind with meditations on Buddha in the hope of attaining at length to Nirvana ; which means extinction of worldly, and indeed of personal, existence by a long series of transmigrations, and by fearful sufferings in an in- definite number of the one hundred and thirty-six purgatorial hells waiting to receive him. Of course, a religion which has no personal God, no vicarious sacrifice, and no prayer, and which relies solely on personal merit, cannot be a transforming power in social life or in personal morality, whatever excellent moral precepts it may inculcate. No fine 184 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. rhetorical quotations from Buddhistic literature — and many such can be produced and have been published — ought to raise in any Christian mind the slightest question of the very urgent need for the propagation of the Gospel in Burma and through- out all this oriental world. Lying, thieving, and all forms of adroit dishonesty in trade abound in Burma to an extent at once astonishing and instructive to British and American business men ; and prostitu- tion is so omnipresent and shameless as to be a bit- ter offense to all Christian foreigners. Earnest and successful Christian work has been done in Burma for most of the current century by missionaries of the Baptist Church. Until faith and heroism and fortitude and consecration cease to have anymeaning, the name of Adoniram Judson can never fail to have a foremost place in the his- tory of Christian missions, the pages of which are illustrious with the names of a glorious host " who through faith subdued kingdoms, obtained promises, out of weakness were made strong, had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, of bonds and imprison- ments, of whom the world was not worthy." Originally a Congregationalist, and sent out as a missionary by the American Board, on the long voy- age, by careful study of the Scriptures, Judson was convinced that immersion was the only baptism, and was immersed on his arrival in Calcutta. This led to the formation of the Baptist Foreign Mission- ary Union, and the adoption of Judson and his fellow-workers as its first missionaries. Driven from BURMA AS A MISSION FIELD. 185 India by the East India Company, and threatened with being sent back to England, Judson took refuge in Burma. When he had labored there five years without a single convert, a friend of his wrote him from America, asking him what ground he had for hoping for success in Burma. His answer was: " None except that based on the promise of the eternal God ; but I would not leave Burma to be made a king. Ask my friends to furnish me bread for a few years ; and, if they are not willing to risk so much on so hopeless a venture, to let me alone a few years, and they certainly will hear from me again." He was driven from place to place; ar- rested, and for some time languished in prison; his work was broken up from time to time by wars ; his health was broken down again and again ; yet he founded one of the great missions of the world, translated the Bible into the Burmese language (making his own grammars and dictionaries) in a version so idiomatic and excellent as to be for Bur- ma what Luther's translation is for Germany ; and, after thirty-eight years, died at sea, and was buried in the Bay of Bengal, whose waters lave the shores of his beloved Burma and have mingled his dust with all oceans, while the fragrance of his example has overspread all continents. The work of the Baptist Mission has been chiefly among the Karens, though it has been constantly maintained among the Burmans also. Its success in conversions among the former race has been many times greater than among the latter, and the 186 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. reason for this is tersely stated by one of its mis- sionaries, Dr. Francis Mason : " I presume I have preached the Gospel to more Burmans than Ka- rens ; but looking at the results, I find I have bap- tized about one Burman to fifty Karens. The reason of the great difference in these results is the difference in the preparation of the two nations for the reception of the Gospel. The Burmans are our Pharisees and Sadducees ; the Karens, our publi- cans and sinners." A like difference, arising from similar causes, is manifest throughout India, and furnishes a most suggestive object lesson to the Christian Church. Low-caste and outcast peoples now, as in the time of Christ, are the first to receive the Gospel. The Baptists in Southeastern India, among the Telugus, between Madras and Calcutta, at a place called Ongole and in its vicinity, have had very notable success in securing conversions. Rev. Mr. Clough and his associates many years ago baptized two thousand two hundred and twenty-two persons in a single day. Within recent years the missionaries of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Northern In- dia have in several years baptized more than ten thousand converts in a single year. Some other Churches which have devoted them- selves almost exclusively to the educational work, and have persistently aimed to teach and win peo- ple of the higher castes, have scarcely had any con- versions at all. A missionary of another branch of the Church sadly said in my presence that if there BURMA AS A MISSION FIELD. 187 should be even two or three conversions among his higli-caste students, he had no doubt that his school would be broken up. The work of Methodist missions is in some re- spects quite similar to that of the Baptists. Both have laid intenser stress on directly evangelistic effort than most other missionary societies have done. Both believe, indeed, in schools, and liber- ally support them, but do not think Christ intended his messengers to be chiefly schoolmasters, and especially secular schoolmasters. Both have en- deavored in all lands to win those who in the Sav- iour's time " heard him gladly." Do not the facts above recited give evidence that in India both have had their reward ? While, however, we thank God and take courage, it must not be forgotten that no country can be evangelized until all ranks of society are reached, from the bottom to the top. That seems to be the divine order ; at first, " not many wise, not many mighty, not many noble;" but at length all these classes must be transformed by the Gospel. When Paul saw " an effectual door open," he gathered in- spiration from the presence of " many adversaries." Missionary labor would lack its greatest triumphs if it had not held on through weary decades with few conversions or none at all. In this spirit we are toiling in Burma. Our Mis- sionary Society has not expended a dollar there for property, and is supporting but one missionary. Private enterprise maintains a second, and the 188 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. Woman's Foreign Missionary Society has contrib- uted about $1,000 for property and supports two teachers. Valuable school, church, and parsonage properties have been secured by local contributions. We have some Telugu, Tamil, and Chinese work, and an open door among the Burmans, the ruling race ; an English-speaking church and school, chiefly Eurasian ; nearly five hundred communi- cants and four hundred Sunday school scholars. We need three more missionaries at once — not for protracted, patient, and weary waiting like Judson's, but to thrust the sickle into whitening harvest fields. CURIOSITIES OF ORIENTAL TRAVEL. 189 CHAPTER XXIV. Curiosities of Oriental Travel* I BEGIN where my feet first touched India — that is, in Bombay. Nothing more quickly arrests the attention of the traveler there than the meth- ods of disposing of the bodies of the dead, chiefly the Burning Ghats and the Towers of Silence; the first used by the Hindus, and the second by the Parsees. The Burning Ghats are in a park as large as a very large city block, surrounded by a stone wall some twelve feet high. Inside this wall every day scores of corpses are burned, each on a separate pile of half a cord of very dry wood, and the dense smoke and sickening odors wrap you round as you drive along one of the chief boulevards of the city. Every Hindu feels himself favored if he can leave a son to apply the torch to his funeral pile. The Towers of Silence are located in a very beautiful park on Malabar Hill, the highest spot in the city, overlooking the ocean and in close prox- imity to the finest residences. There are six of these towers, all very much alike. The one I ex- amined is simply a great circular wall, very thick and solid, twenty-five feet high and one hundred feet in diameter, entirely open to the sky and with but a single narrow entrance on the level of the ground. About ten feet from the ground there is 190 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. an inclined grating of iron bars sloping gradually toward the center, divided into three circular rows, the outer row for the corpses of men, the next for women, and the next for children. After brief and very strange ceremonies the corpse is laid on this grating, and in ten minutes is stripped of every particle of flesh by the vultures — great, grewsome creatures as large as a turkey — more than fifty of which I saw roosting on the wall, and hundreds flying overhead, waiting for their prey. The flora of India and Malaysia can be presented here only by a few notable specimens. In the Bo- tanical Gardens near Calcutta I saw one of the two or three largest and finest banyan trees in the world. It has been carefully cultivated for nearly one hundred years, and covers an area of an acre and three quarters, extending its branches over a vast ellipse three hundred and thirty feet in length and two hundred and seventy feet in width. It has three hundred and seventy-eight trunks of various sizes rooted in the ground. Many of these rooted themselves, but a great many more were carefully planted. Thousands of little rootlets are let down from the branches and swing in the air like strings. Such of these as are properly located, at fit dis- tances from trunks already growing, are inclosed in hollow bamboos, rooted in the ground, and are thus protected until they become strong enough to stand alone. In many cases a bough starting from the great central trunk, stretching out horizontally forty or fifty feet, becomes larger and stronger CURIOSITIES OF ORIENTAL TRAVEL. 191 when it passes another and younger trunk which has become large and vigorous. There seems no natural limit to which a banyan can be spread by such culture. In Singapore I saw a very peculiar plant, very much like the banana, called the " travelers' tree." It has a spongy, fibrous trunk fifteen or twenty feet in height, and, from this, vast leaves, just like ba- nana leaves, but two feet wide and often twelve or fifteen feet long, spread out on two opposite sides — from eighteen to twenty-four of them in all — making the tree look exactly like an immense fan. Each of these leaves collects the dew every night, and from the root of it a pint of water may be drawn in the morning by boring under the leaf with a gimlet ; hence the name, "travelers' tree." The pigeon orchid in Singapore and all about Malaysia is a very beautiful snow-white flower, an inch and a half in length, and in the perfect form of a little pigeon, with bill, head, neck, and body perfect, wings spread, and tail raised. A very re- markable fact is that this orchid, which flowers every month, sends out its blossoms, myriads of them, on the very same morning throughout all Singapore and the region around. I was amply assured by many witnesses that absolutely every blossom of this sort appears simultaneously the same day, fades the next day, and disappears the third. I saw this wonderful outburst on a Sunday morning, and everybody brought a handful of these orchids to church, or carried them about the streets, 13 192 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. or took them home. A still more remarkable fact is that the same flower blooms abundantly every month on the islands within a hundred miles simul- taneously on the same day, but on a diff"erent day from the blossoming day in Singapore. The most peculiar fruit I found in the torrid zone is the " durian." It is in the oval form of a cantaloupe melon, the size of a two-quart pot, cov- ered with short, sharp thorns, which soften when it is ripe, and is of a beautiful brownish-yellow color. The odor, or rather the malodor, of the durian is something astonishing, and almost horrible. It is suggestive of superannuated onions, stale fish, sul- phur springs, and a half dozen other bad odors. If you pass near a market place you smell them a block away. Some captains of vessels will not allow them on board. But when the rind is broken and thrown away, the fruit is so delicious as almost to justify the characterization of it by the great English naturalist, Alfred Russel Wallace. After saying that " the smell is so offensive that some people can never bear to taste it," he goes on to say : " The consistency and flavor of the pulp are in- describable— a rich, butterlike custard, highly fla- vored with almonds, gives the best general idea of it ; but intermingled with it come wafts of flavor that call to mind cream cheese, onion sauce, brown sherry, and other incongruities. To eat a durian is a new sensation worth a voyage to the East to ex- perience. The durian and the orange are the king and queen of fruits." CURIOSITIES OF ORIENTAL TRAVEL. 193 The fauna of India also treats the liaveler to sundry surprises. Doubtless many Americans think of India as overrun with cobras and tigers, and with sundry other venomous serpents and insects and beasts of prey. There is some foundation for such supposition, for the government reports show that last year there were more than twenty-two thousand persons in India killed by snake bites, and about the same number by beasts of prey; and yet, during three months and a half of very ex- tensive travel in that country I never saw a serpent or a beast of prey, except in captivity. The crows of India command attention. They do not, as in this country, live in the woods and fly high over villages. So far from this, they throng the cities, and thousands of them caw about the houses at sunrise and at sunset for half an hour to- gether, as though they were holding an angry par- liament. The India crow is rather smaller than the American, has a longer bill, a gray sash around his neck, and a dudish strut. He is very fond of human society, and frees his mind on all occasions. He will alight on a low roof or a window ledge near where you are sitting, and look you over, first with one eye and then with the other, and talk about you, telling what a mean fellow you are, wondering where you came from, and saying the most insulting things ; and if you drive him away he is quickly back again to renew his observations and remarks. Such attentions really become, after a while, very annoying and even exasperating. One 194 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. recent traveler ventures the opinion that the India crow must have passed through sundry transmigra- tions in previous states of existence, and that at least, among the twenty-seven things suggested, he must have been a fussy old woman, a dishonest lawyer, a politician, a thief, a blackguard, and an editor. It is a very common thing for crows to swoop down and snatch the bread out of the hands of children, or the steak from the plate of a care- less cook as he goes from the cook house to the dining room. The monkeys of India in some of the large cit- ies are still more annoying and thievish than the crows. A demure old monkey will sit quietly on the edge of the low roof of a one-story house in the bazaar, looking as though he were fast asleep, but waiting his chance. When a vender of cakes and candies comes along with a large tray on his head, the instant he is past the monkey will put out his long arm and knock the tray to the ground, and a dozen other monkeys who have been in waiting will snatch up half its contents before the owner can object. The flying fox is a large bat weighing about a pound and a half, and with filmy brown wings which spread fully four feet from tip to tip. I saw many thousands of them flying over the parks in Lucknow, while the coolies beat gongs and pans, and screamed loudly, and made a fierce din to keep them off, because they are so destructive to all ripening fruits and vegetables. Throughout the CURIOSITIES OF ORIENTAL TRAVEL. 195 day they hang by a hook at the joint of a wing, with their wings folded around their bodies, several hundred of them on the branches of a single large tree. They do not, like the vampire bat, thirst for blood, but are entirely herbivorous. On the whole, the greatest of the curiosities which I saw in the East is the " working elephant" of Burma. Every visitor to Rangoon is told that the two great sights there are the world-renowned pagoda and the working elephants. These huge beasts are employed chiefly in getting lumber out of the forests and in work about the sawmills. Ran- goon is a very great center of lumber interests, and has several extensive sawmills. Through one of these we were courteously shown by the superin- tendent. There were nine elephants at work. They had been trained to all the work you can conceive of there being need for there, and they did it with the utmost skill and expedition. Of course a ma- hout sat on the back of each, and with his naked heels and a sharp iron prod and his voice he made the elephant understand what he wanted him to do, just as well as a father could an intelligent boy. We saw them pull long slabs, two or three at a time, out from the floors where the saw had dropped them, drag them long distances, and put them into piles. But by far the most interesting part of their work was the piling up of great timbers sawed square, from sixteen to twenty-two inches on a 196 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. side, and thirty-five feet long, weighing two or three tons each. Two elephants generally worked at one timber, and they put them into a large pile which, when completed, was twelve feet high. They lifted them with their trunks and tusks in combined action, and shoved them with the trunk and one tusk, or with both tusks, or with a foot, sometimes with the trunk resting against the tim- ber as a cushion, against which they would push with foot or tusk. None of their tusks reached nearly to the ground, having been cut off and shaped by sawing and filing to fit them for their work. When an elephant was commanded to lift one end of such a large timber, he would bend both knees, or get down on one knee, until he could push his tusks under the timber. Then he would put his tusks under it and fall back with a great pull, sometimes lifting one of his hind legs to balance the weight until the timber was raised and he could stand squarely on his feet. He would then carry one end of the timber, raise his head as high as possible, and drop the end of the timber on the pile. Another- elephant would then push at the other end, and presently lift it with his tusks until more than half the timber rested on the pile, and then tilt it up, and, raising his tusks and trunk as high as he could reach, would push the timber along to its resting place. They also take the tim- bers, when wanted, to the edge of the river, push them into the water, and fit them into rafts. They are kept at this work about seven hours a CURIOSITIES OF ORIENTAL TRAVEL. 197 day, and do it just the same in the rainy season, when the whole yard is covered with deep mud, in which they go floundering about with mud halfway up their legs. I was told by the superintendent that these elephants weigh about four tons apiece, are about nine feet in height, and cost, before they are trained, twelve hundred dollars each, and that when vv'ell trained they cannot be bought at any price. Our friends who were present that day could find no words fully to express their wonder at the marvelous sagacity and skill of the huge, ungainly beasts. 198 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. CHAPTER XXV. Polyglot Malaysia. MALAYSIA is the general designation for the Malay Peninsula and the immense group of islands lying southward and eastward from Singa- pore, and between the China Sea and Australia. I might also have said group of immense islands, for Borneo, New Guinea, Sumatra, Java, and Celebes all deserve that description. In his exceedingly interesting and instructive book on the Malay Archipelago, Mr. Alfred Russel Wallace publishes a small map of Borneo, with Great Britain and Ireland in the center of it, all on the same scale, and the island completely engulfs the renowned kingdom in a sea of forests. If peo- pled as densely as Sicily, Borneo would have as many inhabitants as the United States. Java has a dense population, and no doubt all the islands of the group will rapidly increase in population as commerce shall develop them. The people can subsist with exceedingly little cost, a single sago palm yielding food enough to support a man a year, at an expense of only three dollars, Tapioca grows wild by the roadside, and its roots are so cheap as hardly to be worth taking to market. The startling tidings of earthquakes in that re- POLYGLOT MALAYSIA. 199 gion might almost lead one to wonder why men should care to live there ; but it is to be noticed that Java, which is more shaken by earthquakes than any other part of the world, is densely popu- lated, and Borneo, near at hand, which never feels the tremor of an earthquake, has a very sparse population. The villages on the sides of sundry half-active volcanoes are also suggestive of the fact that the alarm excited by great calamities in nature quickly passes away. I have used the word "polyglot." The location of Singapore makes it a babel for almost all lan- guages, and ships of all nations are constantly seen in its spacious and picturesque harbor. England, with her instinct and habit of mastery, has frown- ing fortresses on the adjacent hills and cliffs, as she has at Gibraltar, Malta, Suez, and Hong Kong. Singapore naturally, by virtue of its location, is a great strategic, geographical, commercial, and political center. The ships from all Europe, and from Calcutta, must touch there on their way to China and Japan. I met there, at a reception, the General Secretary of the British and Foreign Bible Society, who told me that he kept on sale copies of the Scriptures in more than forty languages spoken there and in the adjacent islands. The Rev. H. L. E. Luering has made a list of fifty-seven lan- guages spoken in the region, and of forty-three other minor dialects to which no names have been given. He is himself a polyglot man, who speaks eighteen languages, six or seven of them fluently. 200 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. Another of our missionaries, the Rev. W. G. Shel- labear, has translated the Gospel of John into the Malay language, and he is invited by the Bible So- ciety to translate the whole New Testament. What a field for missionary activity ! If Wal- lace, the great naturalist, thought it worth his while to spend twelve years in that region, purely for the purpose of scientific observation, and pre- eminently to secure more and finer specimens of birds of paradise and orang-utangs, what shall not the servants of Christ risk to spread his saving knowledge among the people ! We have no mission whatever in Borneo, but our missionaries have made several excursions into that country, and have gathered very valuable informa- tion. In West Borneo there is a savage race called the Dyaks, who are notorious for the habit of " head hunting." No youth can call himself a man until he has killed at least one enemy, and the skulls of all victims are hung up directly under the roof of the house for adornment, some houses hav- ing scores of them. In the early work of the American Board in Su- matra two missionaries were killed and eaten by cannibals. When Dr. W. F. Oldham, the founder of our Malaysia Mission, visited Java, he met two Christian young men from Sumatra, and was in- vited by them to visit their country. He smiled and said, " You did not treat the first missionaries there very kindly." The answer was, " That is true ; but that was a long time ago ; and if you POLYGLOT MAYLASIA. 201 will come to the Battaks now we will promise that we will not eat you." Another of our missionaries, Dr. B. F. West, had an experience near Singapore no less exciting for the moment, and probably very perilous. He was leisurely walking along in the woods, when he chanced to notice an immense boa constrictor stretched along the path close to his feet, doubt- less waiting near the stream to get a young buffalo for his supper. A friend afterward asked him, " What did the boa constrictor do ? " *' He simply raised his head a little," he replied, " but made no other motion." "And what did you do?" "I raised every hair on my head, and got out of there as fast as I could." One striking fact which makes Singapore an ex- ceedingly important center for missionary activity is the present and increasing power of the Chinese. The Chinaman is the Anglo-Saxon of the tropics, and that part of the world has very much to hope from his presence. Many of the Chinese are al- ready rich, and are among the most prosperous merchants. I saw them riding in their splendid English carriages on the boulevards and in the parks. They seem also to be filled with public spirit and with loyal devotion to the British gov- ernment. Several of them have been among the most generous benefactors of our school work, to which they make frequent, and some of them an- nual, contributions. The Philippine Islands are a part of Malaysia, 202 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. lying off several hundred miles northeast from Singapore. For four centuries they have been showing what a Roman Catholic Church govern- ment can do among a semibarbarous people. The result is akin to the centuries of such measureless misrule in Mexico. With the changed conditions of the Philippines no doubt the Roman Catholic Church will begin to educate the common people, which it never does unless compelled by the exam- ple of Protestant missionaries. Singapore is one of the most unique places I have visited. It is only ninety miles north of the equa- tor, and so furnishes a good specimen of the torrid zone, in respect to climate, people, productions, etc. It is in a region of almost perpetual dampness, rain falling every week, and almost every day, in the year. The dampness is so great that almost everything molds and mildews. The houses are built without any glass windows, but with numer- ous large doors or window spaces on every side, closed with blinds or light screens. They have no stoves in them, and no chimneys, the cooking being done in little outhouses or in the open air. The variety and luxuriance of its perpetually green vegetation cannot be described. There is no such profusion of flowers and flowering trees as in the temperate zones ; but the wealth of all shades of green is wonderful. The Botanical Gardens con- tain about six hundred varieties of palms from all lands, only sixty of which are indigenous. I saw POLYGLOT MAYLASIA. 203 there the sago, tapioca, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, mango, tamarind, banana, lime, cocoanut, date, guava, orchid, and almost every other tropical fruit, spice, nut, and plant of which one can or cannot think. I had the rare advantage of having at my side our " polyglot " missionary. Dr. Luering, a na- tive German. He seems to know everything about the fauna and flora of the region, and is a most agreeable gentleman, a humble Christian, and a devoted and successful missionary, especially to the Chinese and Malays. The comparatively small Malay Peninsula lying directly north of here is said to furnish more than half the tin for all the world, and there are great tin smelting works in this city. The tin ore is chiefly brought down from the mines on the backs of elephants, by jungle paths on which no wagons could run. The elephants are said to have a par- ticular dislike to bicycles, and still more for the bells and whistles used by the riders. I have been told of several cases in which they picked up bicy- cles and flung them off into the fields. I have said elsewhere that the Northwest India Conference has the " swing of conquest." I must now say that the Malaysia Mission Conference has the genius of expansion. I could select from the number of its present missionaries a first-rate man to be the founder of missions in Bangkok or Ma- nila or Borneo or Sumatra, and could find men who are anxious to go to open the work in these places. Our deaconess home in Singapore is located on 204 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. one of the finest eminences in the city, where it gets all the cooling breezes and overlooks the mag- nificent harbor. It is flanked by two very com. fortable and spacious missionary homes, and is in the midst of a perfect paradise of splendid trees. It is the commodious home of two or three deacon- esses and a girls' (native) school of fifty or sixty. The Anglo-Chinese boys' school numbers nearly six hundred pupils, of twenty-four nationalities and languages ; and there is a separate large boarding school for young men. Our work in Singapore is carried on in several different languages. Our school and church prop- erties in Penang and Singapore, as also in Ran- goon, have been secured very largely by the gifts of residents, and some of them, which are exceed- ingly valuable, have not cost the Missionary Society a single dollar. The outlook is excellent, and the possibilities of the future in that strangely develop- ing region are unimaginably great. HOMEWARD BOUND. 205 CHAPTER XXVI. Homeward Bound. Steamship Melbourne, \ NEAR Saigon, February 23, 1898. \ AT Singapore I finished the last official duties for which I had been commissioned to un- dertake this tour. We were then more than half way around the world. The homeward trip would be shorter, quicker, and cheaper eastward than west- ward. " Flowery Japan " looked inviting, and "home, sweet home " looked more so; so we took leave of our little band of missionaries at Singa- pore, committing them to God and the word of his grace, as they did us, and embarked for far-away Yokohama. Thus far the sea has been faultlessly smooth, and for one-half day absolutely glassy — the tradi- tional " mill pond " which I have often heard of but never saw before on salt water — not a ripple, and only a very slight swell. This French vessel stopped thirty-three hours at Saigon, the port of the French colony of Indo- China, commonly called Cochin-China. Saigon is forty miles up a river, and no other great steamship line calls there. I was glad of an opportunity to see so odd and interesting a place, and one which so few tourists visit. It is intensely Frenchy, artis- 206 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. tically built, elegantly shaded, and has numerous government buildings and naval works. There were several French war vessels in the harbor, and mer- chant ships of various countries. Large quantities of rice are exported. The weather is hot, and one night in Saigon was made hideous by mosquitoes. Last night I slept well, thanks to eucalyptus oil and the breeze blowing into the portholes. To-day is cool and most refreshing. We have a very few first-class passengers, includ- ing three Chinese merchants and three Japanese. Doctor Goucher and I have exclusive use of two of the best staterooms. The table is excellent, the decks spacious. We have found pleasant English and German acquaintances, and have provided our- selves with entertaining books, both grave and gay; so that the prospect of two weeks on this ship, where we are likely to have pleasant seas, is not un- welcome after the incessant labors of the recent months. Now that we are more than half way around, every turn of the screw seems to bring us appreciably nearer home. Near Nagasaki, Japan, ) Saturday evening, March 5. f An interval of nine days, in which I have car- ried this letter on the mail steamer, as I expect to do for five days more. Alas! for those words in which I predicted " pleasant seas," written after more than forty days on many seas without a single storm. HOMEWARD BOUND. 207 That night we had a heavy storm, and we have had two simoons since, though not quite such roaring, tremendous winds as I once had on the Atlantic. That wind was graded from eight to nine on a scale on which twelve was a hurricane. These have been from five to seven ; nothing serious to a sailor, who would speak of them simply as "nasty weather," but very uncomfortable to a landsman. The vessel has pitched more than it has rolled, the wind being almost dead ahead. This is the regular time for the monsoon which shrieks along this coast for eight or ten weeks. This vessel is not fitted up for cold oceans, al- though its regular route is from Marseilles to Yoko- hama. The cabin, which is large enough to seat fifty persons at table, has no means of heat except two small porcelain stoves, such as are used in Ger- many and Italy ; and when the fire is doing its best I can keep my hand on these stoves for fifteen sec- onds. The thermometer stands at 40° on deck, and 47° in our room. Our late start from Singapore and the delay of the vessel by the monsoon destroyed our last hope of turning aside from Hong Kong and visiting Foo- Chow for a few days, as we had greatly desired to do. We stopped at Hong Kong a few hours, under an angry sky, which poured down a steady, cold rain. We reached our anchorage at Woosang, the port of Shanghai, at ten o'clock in the morning of Thursday, Shanghai being twelve miles up the 14' 208 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. river Yang-tse-Kiang. Again there was a very cold rain and a strong wind, but we wrapped ourselves as warmly as possible and stepped aboard the little puffing tug Whang Poo, the cabin of which was so crowded that many had to stand during all the one and a half hours we were steaming up to Shanghai. We planned to take a cab and keep it until all our errands were done, but not one was to be had at the landing of the steamer in Shanghai, so we each took a jinrikisha, and protected ourselves from the rain as best we could. Toward evening we stopped at the Astor House, the best hotel in Shanghai, and quite good. All the servants are sleek, neatly dressed Chinamen. We got a good large room with two beds, ordered it thoroughly heated, and found in it a roaring coal fire in a little cylinder stove, made in 1872 in Peekskill, New York. Another start in the rain the next day at six in the morning, and we were off for Japan. Two days later we had another unpleasant sur- prise. We had strongly hoped to spend the most of the day at Nagasaki and see our missionaries there. On Saturday we were assured by our pilot that we would arrive at midnight and be at Naga- saki three or four hours on Sunday forenoon, so we went to sleep with the delightful prospect of wor- shiping with our missionaries on Sunday morning and so giving them the always welcome greeting of the home Church. But the coaling of the ship was HOMEWARD BOUND. 209 done in the niglit, and her engines moved at sun- rise, just in time for us to get a glimpse of the city and the incomi^arably beautiful harbor, but none of our missionaries ! Yokohama, Thursday, March lo. After a bright Sabbath, just before sunset we reached the narrow, tortuous straits at Shimono- seki, about twelve miles in length, through which we entered the famous Inland Sea, over *-he waters of which we glided under the brilliant light of a silvery full moon. The scenery all the next day, among mountainous islands of marvelous greenness and beauty, justifies the highest encomiums of trav- elers on the Inland Sea. It is a vast, magnificent, and glorified Lake George and Lake Tahoe com- bined. From Singapore to Hong Kong, a full week, we had on board a Romish cardinal, six priests, and five very oddly dressed nuns. Every morning when the cardinal appeared on deck the priests and nuns hastened forward and embraced his feet, and kissed the ring on his hand. He took these attentions with the utmost composure, as a mere matter of form, and silently walked away. At Kobe we left the steamer to come some three hundred and fifty miles by rail to this place. We were obliged to get passports and show them at the ticket office. The novel and striking scenery, the odd-looking houses, the great profusion of beautiful plum blossoms, the green fields and gardens, and 210 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. the omnipresent cultivation of rice and tea made the six hours' journey to Nagoya seem very short, and filled it with pictures to be remembered. We telegraphed to Dr, D. S. Spencer, the pre. siding elder there, who, with our Japanese pastors, met us at the station, and took us in jinrikishas to his home, where we had most cordial and consider- ate entertainment for twenty-four hours. We called at the Woman's Foreign Missionary School; met Misses Bender, Russell, and Heaton ; saw the old castle, the most famous one in Japan ; visited the cloisonne factory and the pottery works, for which Nagoya is noted ; and in the evening had a very curious reception, chiefly Japanese, at the presiding elder's residence. Nagoya was the center of the great earthquake of six or eight years ago. We afterward saw one of our missionaries, who was pastor there at that time, who was stopped by the earthquake in the midst of a prayer in a meeting he was leading, and in rushing out saw four persons killed by the falling of the chimney, which was thrown from the church just over his head. We reached Yokohama at half past ten o'clock in the evening, and were welcomed at the station not only by our missionaries resident in that city, but by several Japanese pastors, who had come eight- een miles from Tokyo to greet us and had to re- turn at midnight. On Thursday evening we had another Japanese reception in the church, and made and heard several speeches. The people welcomed HOMEWARD BOUND. 211 US with the greatest interest and cordiahty, and were deeply interested, not only in the greetings of the home Church, but also in our reports of the wonderful work of God's grace in India. Tokyo, Friday, March ii. You would be amused to see us flying round this city in jinrikishas, in winter overcoats with the collars turned up over our ears, and with our shawls carefully tucked in around our feet, while our swift trotting coolies are barelegged and bareheaded. We a,re very comfortable and are most cordially entertained ; Dr. Goucher by his old friend. Dr. So- per, and I by the Rev. H. B. Swartz and his charm- ing family. Another reception, of course, awaited us on our arrival here yesterday afternoon. It was informal, social, and very agreeable. Besides all our preachers and teachers, native and foreign, and many laymen and ladies, there were present several Canadian Methodist and other missionaries. Yokohama, Thursday, March 24. Our two weeks here have been crowded full of "sights and insights " of exceeding interest which, however, cannot be described in detail in this too hasty letter. The days were too few for the com- plete visitation of our publishing houses, churches, schools, orphanages, and missionary homes inTokyo, a city of more than a million inhabitants, the splen- did capital of Japan, and in Yokohama, the greatest seaport of the country. Then there are the pal- 212 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. aces and the government university, heathen tem- ples, two really great museums, the Greek Catholic cathedral, the bazaars ; and, above all else in per- petual interest, the streets thronged with the pecu- liar people ; scarcely a carnage anywhere to be seen, but twelve thousand jinrikishas hurrying to and fro everywhere. Numerous social entertainments gave us oppor- tunity to meet our missionaries and many native workers. We had also two unique native banquets and a ceremonial tea. Can I ever forget them ! We had rain, wind, snow; ice, slush, and mud; three brilliant days, and one glorious view of Fuji- yama, which certainly ranks among the most ma- jestic mountains in the world. Steamship Empress of Japan, near the ) Middle of the Pacific Ocean, March 31. j On Friday noon, March 25, a large number of our missionaries and native Christians " accompanied us to the ship" and waved their farewells, as our swift palace pushed out for its voyage of forty-four hun- dred miles to Vancouver. We have a very pleasant company on board, including the wife and son of one of our mission- aries, the daughter of another missionary on her way to America to attend the Woman's College of Baltimore, and three missionary families of other denominations. We have had two Wednesdays in one week, two days reckoned as March 31, and thirty-two days in the month of March. HOMEWARD BOUND 213 Our present voyage has not been as fine as some which have preceded it. Our ship is large, staunch, and elegant. There are a very fine dining hall and library, and spacious and commodious staterooms, an ample bill of fare, including Cali- fornia oranges for lunch and dinner ; but the ship rolls and rolls and rolls on the slightest provocation, sometimes until our porthole is far under water ; and though we have had no storm, but only brisk breezes and moderate waves, it is often difficult to keep your seat in a chair without holding fast to its arms. Tuesday, April 5. We have now come to the dock at Victoria, eighty miles before reaching our journey's end. Several more uncomfortable days have passed, with no bad storm, but with a rough sea and a rolling ship. This is a quarantine station, and we stop here all night to bathe our five hundred and nineteen Chinese and ninety-nine Japanese immigrants, and to steam their clothes. Vancouver, Canada, Wednesday, April 6. After six months' absence I was most happy, last evening, to see across a narrow bay the shores of my own country again. Philadelphia, Wednesday, April 13, 1898. Home again ! From Vancouver we came by the Canadian Pacific Railway over the magnificent Sel- 214 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. kirk and Rocky Mountain ranges, which were clad in spotless ermine ; and crossed the frozen plains of Canada. We had a delightful Sabbath day's rest in Minneapolis in the home of one of my daughters. Then again swiftly homeward. The faithful friend who had been my companion all round the globe left me at Harrisburg, a hundred miles from my home, under the constraint of a mighty magnetism which turned him aside to his home in Baltimore. WELCOME HOME. 215 CHAPTER XXVII. Welcome Home. ON my return from India and Malaysia a public reception was accorded me, under the man- agement of a committee of eleven ministers ap- pointed by the Philadelphia Preachers' Meeting and eleven laymen appointed by the Philadelphia Lay- men's Association. The reception was given in the Arch Street Church, on Tuesday evening, April 21, 1898. The address of welcome was read by the Rev. T. B. Neely, D.D., LL.D., and in response I made the following Address.* Mr. President and Christian Friends : Before I utter a single word in glad and grateful acknowledgment of this very cordial and honorable address of welcome, I must be allowed to indulge my heart for an instant in recalling those beloved and lamented fellow-workers of ours who were with us last September and are not visibly present now. " They rest from their labors and their works do follow them ;" and our hearts follow them in high congratulation on the triumph which they have attained and in solemn sadness on account of our sorrow. *Much condensed here to avoid the repetition of facts fully stated in preceding chapters. 216 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. Mr. President, I can find no words to utter the high appreciation which I feel in my heart of hearts for this welcome which has been so admirably voiced in the address of the committee of minis- ters and laymen — men whom I am glad to honor — and also has had expression to my sight in the pres- ence of this great concourse, and in the smiling faces and gleaming eyes of this multitude of the picked Methodists and other Christians, as I per- ceive, of Philadelphia and its vicinity. Permit me, before addressing myself to the chief purpose of my standing here to-night and of your coming here to hear me, some observations of a general sort, such as would occur to any tourist, relating to matters which must arouse the attention of every intelligent observer who travels widely in the East. In making the circuit of the earth I have trav- eled thirty-three thousand miles — twenty-one thou- sand of them by sea — sixty-six days on almost all the seas and oceans in the north temperate and northern part of the torrid zones, with no hurri- canes, no storm at all until I had been forty days on many seas, then two or three days and nights a little exciting to a landsman, but nothing to a sailor ; not an hour of fog, and not a minute of that grievous central physical disturbance which makes the sea such a terror to multitudes of my fellow- men. On reaching Bombay I was furnished at the outset with abundant knowledge concerning that WELCOME HOME. 217 great scourge which devastated that city and some other places in India in the winter of 1896-97, the bubonic plague. It is chiefly a winter disease ; last summer it almost disappeared. When I was in Bombay in November and December the death rate from the plague ranged from four to fourteen a day, touching no Europeans at all ; in January and February it rapidly increased; and I have just this week received a letter from Bishop Thoburn, in which he states concerning it some particulars such as I have not lately seen in print, which I give you very briefly. The letter bears date Bombay, March 8. He says : " I find all well ; but the plague has not abated in the least. The deaths yesterday were one hundred and ninety-three, and the daily death rate has been in the neighborhood of two hundred for two weeks past. Europeans still escape, for the most part." So that, although the efforts to stamp out the plague have been par- tially successful, there is deep apprehension and fear that it may spread to other great cities in India on the Eastern coast, whose filthy condition certainly invites it. No words can well express the admiration which the British government and the India de- partment of it deserve for their heroic efforts, with unstinted use of money and of all available scien- tific skill, to limit, and, if possible, to destroy this awful scourge ; and the same may be said of the efforts to relieve the famine, which had pretty much ceased when I reached India last November. 218 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. A great many deaths have occurred during the winter as the indirect consequence of the famine, and the statements made by Mr. Juhan Hawthorne in the Cosmopolitan, which were so severely criti- cised, according to the best information I could get in India did not exaggerate the dreadful conse- quences of the famine. I referred to the British government. One of the marvels of history — one of the most striking series of events in any generation and in any land — may be summed up in the phrase, '' British rule in India." How it came to pass that a nation having its chief seat of empire on a little island on the west coast of Europe should have been able to subjugate a ter- ritor)^ as large as the United States east of the Mis- sissippi River ; to bring almost all the native rulers under its authority; since then to hold disarmed a population of two hundred and eighty-seven mil- lion people and give them the best government by far that they have ever had, and to do this with only eighty thousand British soldiers, and with British residents (men, women, and children all put together) less than one hundred and ninety thousand — surely this is one of the greatest mar- vels recorded in authentic history. It sounds like the wildest romance ; but it is the solid and mag- nificent achievement of one of the great governing and colonizing nations of the globe— bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. And I want to add this, in this time when I will not say we greatly need (for any other than a sympathetic reason) the friend- WELCOME HOME. 219 ship of the mother country : traveling around the globe I have met with Englishmen— a great many of them — of all ranks of society ; several earls, more lords, officers of the army and navy and of the mer- chant marine, merchants and barristers, missiona- ries and their critics, clergymen and mechanics; have talked with them or heard them talk ; and I have not met a single Englishman, even in the free- dom of the conversations on board vessels where we were together many days (which are sure to loosen men's tongues if anything can), who said in my hearing, at any time, any word concerning our country that was not a word of respect and friend- ship. And when, on board English ships, called to conduct religious services, I prayed in the same breath, more than once, for the Queen Empress of India and for the President of the United States, the rustle of satisfaction and gladness amounted almost to applause ; and I am sure you will all heartily join me in saying "God save the Queen" and God bless old England. Let me now address myself to the condition and progress of the Christian religion, and especially the Methodist type of it, in British India. I wish first to make a general statement — a very brief one — and then to impress it upon your minds by a few vivid pictures. This is the total plan of what I shall now say ; and I know that the rhetoricians would criticise me at once, some of them, for turn- ing the subject around, and beginning where I ought to end ; but I will tell you frankly my reason : 220 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. I am so sure that I can make good to you the the- sis with which I begin this part of my remarks that I do not hesitate to tell you at the outset my delib- erate conclusion on the subject of which I speak. The collective judgment I have formed is about this: that Christianity, and the Methodist type of it, in India, have brought forth in this generation a volume of Christian evidences of greater value to the world than all the volumes of Christian eviden- ces that can be gathered from the libraries of the theological seminaries of both hemispheres ; that in our time, in the lifetime of the younger men here before me now, the Christian religion has so taken hold in the vast empire of India, among nearly three hundred million people, as almost to enable the careful observer to see the footprints of the ever-living Christ all over that land. I shall hardly exaggerate my sense of the truth on this subject if I should add that if the too laggard church could but come a little nearer to her divine-human Leader, his fresh footprints would be seen everywhere among the nations. The difference between the books and the sight of such evidences of Christianity as I have had the privilege to witness in the recent months, is all the difference between reading a treatise on the expan- sive power of steam and walking the deck of a mag- nificent six-thousand ton steamer plunging through the billows in the midst of the ocean, and feeling the constant throb of its hot heart, until in eleven days it has crossed the great Pacific. I find not WELCOME HOME. 221 how, in any words which I have been able to frame with tongue or pen, to make any statement strong enough to voice my own burning conviction that the Lord Jesus Christ is taking India. Call to mind, if you please, Judson in Burma, toiling, praying, fearing, hoping for many a weary year before he had a single convert, and Maclay similarly waiting in China, and then liear the facts which I am about to state: that only forty years ago, under appointment and advice of those two great missionary leaders of the Church, both whose names are especially sacred in this City of Brotherly Love — John P. Durbin and Matthew Simpson — William Butler went out to plant Methodism in Lndia ; and then consider well what I now tell you (and I wish these figures might be burned into your memory): that we now have in India and Malaysia 77,963 communicants of the Methodist Episcopal Church, of whom 38,750 were baptized within two years ; 1,259 schools with 31,879 pupils; 2,485 Sunday schools, with 83,229 scholars ; 209 Epworth Leagues with 10,337 members; 226 foreign missionaries, including the ministers, their wives, and the mis- sionary teachers of the Woman's Foreign Mission- ary Society ; and native laborers in various ranks of employment, making a staff of 3,537 paid workers ; and that the total value of our church, school, and other properties is 3,607,980 rupees. The foundations of our work in India have been broadly and solidly laid in both the great depart- ments of missionary labor, the educational and the # 222 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. evangelistic. Some missionary societies devote themselves almost entirely to education, and the missionaries are little more than schoolmasters ; some, almost entirely to evangelistic work. Our Church does both, and does both strongly and well. Some ten years ago, when that wonderful little bunch of consecrated and sagacious optimism called James M. Thoburn (just then elected to the missionary episcopacy) began his first tour among the churches in America before he went out to India and Malaysia, he startled the Church by saying that he hoped to live to see the day when there would be ten thousand converts under the care of our Church in India alone in a single year. We heard it with wonder — some of us raising the question whether he was the wildest of fanatics or a cour- ageous and veritable prophet of the living God. I am thankful to say that I was one of those who at the time chose the latter horn of this dilemma. The events of the last ten years have abundantly justified that belief, and instead of io,ooo there have been in a single year 12,000, 13,000, one year 18,000 converts brought to Christian baptism under the labors of our missionaries in India and Malaysia! And these numbers might be vastly augmented if only — as one of our native pastors said in my hear- ing— we could provide "holders up" of the con- verts, that is, plain, comparatively illiterate, but gen- uinely converted pastor-teachers, who should train them in Christian knowledge and guard them against the temptations sure to assail them. WELCOME HOME. 223 I came to Allahabad, a " sacred " city, to hold the Northwest India Conference, and had the good fortune to get there just in time to see a great heathen incla, or camp meeting, during which scores of thousands in two or three days, and certainly often from a hundred to a hundred and fifty thou- sand in a month, come to bathe at the confluence of the Ganges and the Jumna, the two sacred rivers, where, as they think, the waters arc especially sacred. There is a strip of sand and dust on the bank a mile and a quarter in width, and across that there is a sprinkled path three hundred feet wide. It has to be sprinkled, or you could not breathe at all. Crowds of people are going to and fro all the time ; doubtless fifteen thousand the day I was there, who had come in for miles on foot, bringing their packages of rice and their blankets on their heads, to bathe daily in these waters. All along this broad path were beggars, the most blatant and persistent and outrageous you ever saw. Those in Naples cannot begin to match them. They have every sort of malformation, nine tenths of them simulated, as a policeman's baton will quickly show. They want anything you will give them ; a/zV, the smallest copper coin, in use, worth only one sixth of a cent ; cowries, if they can get them — these little shells, of which one hundred and sixty are worth but one cent, but which have been money in India for two thousand years, and are so now ; a little handful of rice — anything in the world. 15 If 224 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. You have to work your way through them as best you can. There were also the devotees — the " holy men " — the filthiest men, holy or unholy, I ever saw ; for besides never having been washed or having their hair combed — hanging down as it does to their shoulders in long, snaky mats — they added a kind of grayish-white paint on their faces and breasts that made them hideous. They were undergoing every sort of self-torture. Some had their arms stretched up or out straight until they were as stiff as wood. One man had his left foot above his right knee. Under his breast there was a little board fastened by a cord to a post behind him, support- ing, perhaps, one third of his weight. He had been in that condition eleven years. One was lying on a spike bed ; one was sitting, and two were standing on square blocks covered with spikes. Dr. Goucher, to whom everything seems by a strange magnetism to come, wanted one of these spikes, and he said to the man as he was working away at one of them, " Let me have one of those spikes.'' The man said, " O, no ! it would be sacrilege ; and it could not be taken out, it has grown to be a part of the wood." At last the doctor said, " It would not be sacrilege for me to have it, for I am a foreigner from another country, and I think it will come out easily for me ; let us see ; " and he reached down to the spike he had been working at and lifted it slightly, and it came right out before the man's eyes, to his great amazement. Then he said, " I have a friend who WELCOME HOME, 225 wants one also." The man declared he could not possibly agree to that, and yet when the doctor had the two out before his eyes the man took with a smile the little piece of silver that was given him. So now I have one of the spikes on which that de- votee had lain for nine years. It is of wrought iron, about three inches long and pointed at both ends, and was driven into the wood about an inch. Other devotees were lying in the dust covered to their nostrils, and every expiration sent up a cloud of dust into the air. Do you wonder that I had the feeling of being submerged and suffocated and almost dead ; and thought of our missionaries as in the same condition, and yet feeling around after pearls ? Do you think I can put into words the im- pressions with which I left that place (after some hours of wandering about) concerning the disgust- ing and ruinous heathenism in which hundreds of millions of my fellow-creatures are held in India? Beside the great pathway was a little booth in which four or five native preachers (two of whom un- derstood English) were preaching the Gospel ; and I stopped and found one who could interpret for me. Presently there came up an old man ; a little crowd gathered ; he heard with them the singing, and then the plain preaching, and he put now and then a question which the missionary paused to answer. When the talking stopped and there came a little lull, I had a half hour's chat with the old man through an interpreter. He had one of his sacred books wrapped up carefully, which he un- 226 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. wrapped and showed mc, and read me something from it ; and then he put it aside awhile. I noticed that while he was talking to me he was moving his hand in a little bag — a prayer bag hung to his girdle by a hook, and with a place for the thumb on one side and the fingers on the other. I asked him what he was doing. " Why, I am counting off my beads — saying my prayers." Said I, " You don't want them ; let me have them." He smiled and said, " They don't do me any good." So presently he handed me over the string of beads and I gave him half a rupee of silver and told him I would be glad if he would take that and I would take his treasure ; and he said it was no longer of any use to him. I pointed him to Jesus ; and he listened to me and tried to upset me by quotations from his book ; and then listened and listened and wanted to know more of my Master; and when my time was up and I arose to leave, he gave me his hand and said, " I will be yoicr disciple." " O! " I said, " I don't want you ; I will turn you over to my Lord, Jesus Christ ; " and I came on my way. Look now at a very different picture, which I saw in the immediate vicinity of a little village called Bahlej. Two years and a half before we had there only fifteen converts, the overflow from Bombay. That shows you how missions propa- gate themselves in Northern India — you might as well assign limits to the rising tide of the Atlantic Ocean as to assign a narrow field to James M. Thoburn and his fellow-missionaries and the WELCOME HOME. 227 Methodist Church anywhere on the face of the earth. John Wesley told an everlasting cruth con- cerning it, when he said, " The world is my parish." Well, pardon this Pauline digression ! Fifteen of these Gujerati converts from Bombay got up into the region of Baroda ; of course our missionaries followed them ; and in two and a half years the fifteen had become fourteen hundred. I wish we had such success as that all over Philadelphia and Pennsylvania. The missionaries extemporized a little camp meeting under the banyan trees for Dr. Goucher, Bishop Thoburn and myself to meet these con- verts, whom we found gathered there from scores of little villages. When I speak of villages, I do not mean what you call a village here ; I mean sim- ply a little collection of mud huts — pei'haps ten, twenty, fifty, one hundred of them — in which human beings live and from which they go forth to their daily toil in the fields. In villages of this sort, within twenty miles, these fourteen hundred Chris- tians lived ; and twelve hundred of them got out to see the American strangers. We had a morn- ing and afternoon of holy song and delightful ad- dresses and the utterance of Christian experiences and exhortation ; and then in the afternoon, as we drew near the close of the services, Dr. Goucher and I had the honor and the pleasure to baptize two hundred and twenty-five persons, mostly recent converts, including twenty-five or thirty children of those converts, many of them four or five years old, 228 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. running around the grounds clad in nothing except the brown silk in which they were born. Bishop Thoburn strictly questioned all the adults before we baptized them. They were arranged in rows, sitting on the ground, and they were closely questioned somewhat thus : " Do you believe in one God?" "Do you believe in Jesus Christ?" " Do you forsake your idols — have you put away every token of idolatry ? " " Will you forsake " this and that and the other? "Will you give up espe- cially GJiali? " which is the Hindustani word for the obscene abuse of another person's mother and grand- mother. The Hindus do not swear ; their swear- ing is the obscene abuse of each other's ances- tors, and especially female ancestors, " Will you break away from all that and every other wicked thing ? " When they had answered many such searching questions, I said to one of the mission- aries : " Do these poor fellows and these poor women know anything about the Apostles' Creed?" He took the question forward, and said, " Our American bishop wants to know whether you know anything about the Apostles' Creed ; " and then said to the interpreter, " Ask them and let them try it." Then those adults repeated the Apostles' Creed from be- ginning to end better than I have often heard it repeated in America, unless it was read from the book ; and they could have done the same with the Twenty-third Psalm, the Ten Commandments, and the Lord's Prayer. I account it as one of the richest privileges of my life that I was permitted to WELCOME HOME. 229 sprinkle the water of holy baptism on the heads of more than one hundred of those converts from heathenism. " Raw heathen," I have heard said of these peo- ple in Europe and in America. " Raw heathen." Yes, such they were ; such they xvere. How, then, did they come to know these things? Because for four or six months humble pastor-teachers went through these villages every evening when the labor- ers came home from the fields, and held village prayer services, in which the New Testament was read and plainly expounded, the Apostles' Creed was taught, and the Lord's Prayer was taught, and the Ten Commandments were taught ; so that I say, although they had all been " raw heathen," when we baptized them they were penitentChristian believers. I said to Dr. Parker, on the occasion of the similar baptism of numerous converts elsewhere : " Dr. Parker, tell me frankly ; when you thus win twenty or one hundred or two hundred of these raw heathen and baptize them, how many are stead- fast after a few years?" He answered : "We have done that again and again ; and where they are properly cared for by their pastors, after a year or two years you will find ninety-five per cent of them every time with their faces toward the Cross, lead- ing good lives and doing their best to break away from their habitual sins." " Raw heathen ? " God send us more of them, and send us the grace to strengthen and uphold them, and to present them at last before him with exceeding joy. 230 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. Now let me add, if only our beloved Church were able (nay, we are able), were so awake as to be willing to lay such contributions on the altar of the Missionary Society that we might add twenty- five per cent only for the work in India next year, and as much the year after, I tell you my sober conviction (which is as clear as anything which I have profoundly studied and about which I know the facts) ; we might double the number of our communicants and pupils, and our influence for good in India, in forty-eight months : and in the early years of the century to come, if the dear Lord shall only give us reserved energies of the Holy Spirit, for which my praying heart often lays claim in humble faith — in the opening years of the com- ing century I see nothing to prevent a million con- verts in India in a decade. The people are for- saking the old religions and are disgusted with them. The British government carries with it all around the globe the Bible, and Protestant Chris- tianity, and the form of sound words in the English liturgy, and is a savor of good on these lines ; and I, for one, am glad and grateful for this influence of the nation from which we sprang. I am glad to be back again ; I am glad to have rested for three weeks in flowery Japan ; I am glad to say that on the last Sunday I spent in Tokyo, after riding six miles through a fierce rain in a little narrow jinrikisha, with two barelegged Japanese to draw me, I found in the little church one hundred and thirty native Japanese, and through an inter- WELCOME HOME. 231 prcter preached to them the simplest Gospel I could command. Having closed, I sat down ; but, during the singing, said to myself, " Why had you not the courage, here where the Japanese are too Frenchy and polite to put religious experience straight to men — why had you not the courage to ask if anybody wanted to be a Christian ? " And so, before they rose to sing the doxology, I gave a brief exhortation and invited any who wished to come to Christ to rise and stand ; seven arose — five young men, some of whom are students in the Im- perial University, and two middle-aged women. Then I asked them forward, and they came and sat down, and I tried to tell them the simple way of faith. And somehow or other, I felt as though my license to preach had been renewed ; and I am ready to go around the globe again if only I may be God's voice to bring seven sinners — especially seven heathen sinners — to the mercy seat, I am very glad to be back here. " There's no place like home ; " and, next after that dear spot where your wife and children are, there is no place like a great Christian community in which you el- bow up against like-minded, hearty, sympathetic fellow-workers in the kingdom of Jesus Christ. I am back again. How long I shall be back I cannot tell. You speak your word of welcome ; I thank you ; it shows that you cordially appreciate my return ; though, as one of the wide-ranging itinerants of the Church, I cannot command very much time in the city I love so well. Next after 232 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. my official duties I am here again to lend a hand of help to our City Missionary and Church Exten- sion Society, of which I am one of the officers ; I am here to help Methodists in Philadelphia to un- derstand a little better how much they need, for their own sakes, a good, strong, Christian school for their girls ; I am here to resume my place among the managers of our general Board of Church Ex- tension ; I am here to lend at least a heart of sym- pathy to our local Methodist philanthropic institu- tions and to our numerous churches — I cannot be with you constantly — I am here and there and everywhere on my official errands. I hope to run with you a little longer in this pilgrim path, and trust that through God's infinite mercy we shall meet at length with our loved and lamented ones at the right hand of the Father, and cast our starry crowns at our enthroned Redeemer's feet with immortal rapture. OUR MOST SUCCESSFUL MISSION. 233 CHAPTER XXVIII. Out Most Successful Mission. An Address before the General Missionary Committee, at Providence, R. I., November 12, 1898.* I HAVE been looking forward to this meeting ever since I came from India with a deep sense of responsibility and a painful feeling of anx- iety and apprehension arising from two facts : first, that it falls to my lot to represent the most suc- cessful mission we have anywhere or have ever had ; and second, that no other one of our general superintendents has made any official visitation to that field for eleven years. I was assigned to make the first of the visitations ordered by the last Gen- eral Conference. A year ago I was in the field, and a year ago to-day I arrived at Naini Tal, where I received a telegram from this General Committee and answered it, and many hearts were thrilled by your sympathy and thoughtfulness. My embarrassment is relieved to some extent by the fact that I had as my constant companion Rev. Dr. John F. Goucher, whose fidelity and intelli- gence in the administration of the great trusts committed to him is well known to you all, and who will assist me in this representation. And I had also the invaluable help of the constant pres- * Spoken extemporaneously and stenographically reported. 234 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. ence — except in the case of one Conference — of Bishop Thoburn. This joint administration was arranged for, as you know, by the General Conference, which left all the particulars concerning the method to be deter- mined by the two bishops in charge, and provided that " in case of a difference of judgment, the exist- ing status shall continue, unless overruled by the general superintendents, who shall have power to decide finally." I am delighted to say, after having gone through this whole administration, that daily conversations and prayer solved all the difficulties, and at the close of the entire visitation, while neither of us, I am sure, sacrificed any clear con- victions, we at last came to unity of judgment at every point, and reported nothing to the Board of Bishops to be settled by them. On our voyage from Brindisi to Bombay we met Lord Kinnaird, a Scotchman — a Presbyterian in Scotland and a Churchman in London (as he said the queen was, and as he had a right to be), a deeply religious man, who had been greatly blessed under the labors of Mr. Moody and Professor Drummond — who was going out with his wife to inspect the work of zenana missions. We had on board thirty-nine missionaries, representing thir- teen different societies. We proposed to Lord Kinnaird that we should have some missionary conferences, at which he was asked to preside. We had on alternate days four of these conferences, at which almost every subject of practical interest OUR MOST SUCCESSFUL MISSION. 235 concerning the work of missions in India was discussed. Questions came from Lord Kinnaird which set us to thinking on the character of our converts, and I think his questionings and doubts were resolved by the reports we afterward sent him, for recently he has given Bishop Thoburn one hun- dred pounds for his work. When we began our visitations we found a condition of things which it is not possible to fully describe. I wish you could be placed on some magic carpet which should transport you all to that heathenism-stricken continent. What I saw and heard went to my bones and marrow and heart, and became an awful incubus and nightmare. When I have awakened in the darkness of the night, I have often had a sharp revival of feelings which Bishop Thoburn could not fully represent to you, because for forty years he has been in the midst of heathenism, and he had to become cal- loused on the surface or die. India is a dreadfully poverty-stricken country. Women are employed in the hardest of labor at four cents a day, and multitudes of men also. Ex- cellent carpenters and masons and painters can be had in Madras and Bombay for from ten to fourteen cents a day. That shows the poverty. It is important that you get a little sense of what you read about and think about concerning hea- thenism, not as a distant and striking picture, but as an omnipresent and awful reality ; and this among three hundred millions of people for whom 236 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR Jesus Christ died ! I want you to see that thing. I refer first to the condition of women in India. Dr. R. S. Storrs utters a brilliant and very impres- sive simile : "It is a fact, significant for the past, prophetic for the future, that even as Dante meas- ured his successive ascents in paradise, not by im- mediate consciousness of movement, but by seeing an ever lovelier beauty in the face of Beatrice, so the race now counts the gradual steps of its spir- itual progress out of the ancient heavy glooms toward the glory of the Christian millennium, not by mechanisms, not by cities, but by the ever new grace and force exhibited by woman, who was for ages either the decorated toy of man or his de- spised and abject drudge." Think of a country in which women are the great burden-bearers, where millions of them who can get any work get only four cents a day, and where there are millions who cannot get any work at all ; and where a woman has no thought of any such thing as being the owner of her own body, of her own mind, of her own heart! Fathers prom- ise their daughters in marriage to men who have never seen them, and the bride and groom gener- ally meet but once before their marriage for a short conversation which runs like this: " Can you cook? Will you stay at home and prepare my food?" and " What wages do you get, and can you support me, and will you if I marry you ? " and that is about all. And this occurs, or the contract for it, when the girls are less than twelve years of age, generally OUR MOST SUCCESSFUL MISSION. 237 from seven to ten. If a man's daughter becomes eleven or twelve and is not engaged to be married he finds a marriage broker and says, " Find a young man for my daughter ; " and he gives her in mar- riage, and she never sees the man to whom she is body and soul given up until they meet at the mar- riage altar. Then, if the man dies, she becomes a widow, perhaps at eleven or twelve or thirteen years of age, and is a bond slave of her father-in- law and mother-in-law, and is despised, and has no hope of happiness in this life. Now another picture drawn in deepest shadow, showing how the general mind of this whole mass of humanity has been for thousands of years de- pressed until the intellect, sensibilities, moral na- ture, and spiritual aspirations are covered up and ground down and loaded with rubbish and filth. Come with me to the sacred city of Benares. It stands on a sweep of the Ganges that extends for two miles and a quarter. Here is a high bluff slop- ing backward from the water, and all along these sacred waters of the Ganges facilities are provided for bathing for religious purposes. There are stone steps going down into the water, and platforms reaching out twenty feet or more into the stream in order that the largest number possible of men and women may bathe for religious purposes. It is done promiscuously but decently. They man- age to strip off what little clothing they have while in the water, and then to robe themselves with a fresh garment before coming out. 238 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. As I went up and down that river front on the second story of a kind of houseboat, for two or three hours on each of two mornings between nine and twelve o'clock, and saw tens of thousands of people bathe for religious purposes in the " holy- Ganges," my great and profound sense of the evils of heathenism became a measureless pain. Most of the bathers seemed utterly indifferent. They looked about and went through the perform- ance as mechanically as though turning the crank of a hand organ. There were among them lepers, easily known by their white spots. The Ganges is the filthiest stream I ever saw. The Missouri after a freshet cannot match it. The dead bodies of animals float down, lodge on the bars, and are torn to pieces by the vultures. The calcined bones of human beings, burned in the ghais, float down the stream on little bamboo rafts, and there is such a burning ghat in full operation on the shore in the midst of the bathing places. I saw several bodies on separate piles wrapped in flames ; and one man on a stretcher, his breast still heaving with his expiring gasps. When I returned an hour later his body was on a pile half consumed. Close by stand several monuments on the spots where living widows were burned before suttee was abolished by the strong and beneficent hand of British law. The sewage of the great towns and cities, and of the whole country, which is full of domestic ani- mals and wild beasts and human beings, pours into OUR MOST SUCCESSFUL MISSION. 239 the vile stream. And that is the Ganges ! Yet the natives think it sacred and perfectly clean ! They bring their bowls of brass consecrated by the priests and dip up the water and drink it for inter- nal ablution. They carry home water to their friends, a pint or so of this holy water, as a sacred treasure. No statements of physiologists as to the numberless myriads of microbes in every gill affect them in the least. It is the holy Ganges ; it is sacred ! As I came to the shore and went into the shrines, of which there are a great many thou- sands, with little gods in them, and saw the people come and lay down their yellow flowers or other offerings, and into the temples, of which there are hundreds, I found that the instruments of devotion and the symbols in the presence of these gods were in every case so obscene that no photograph of them could lie on your parlor table, and no words dare mention them. Lest this statement should seem to you morbid, I fortify it by words of Bishop Thomson, written thirty years ago : " Indian idolatry has touched bottom. As I stood in the holy city Benares, every sense dis- gusted, and every feeling merged in indignation, contemplating the stupidity, the odiousness, the obscenity, the discord, the beastliness of that cen- ter of pagan worship, I thought, surely it can get no lower without opening the mouth of hell. I exclaimed, within myself, ' Almighty God, to what depths of darkness and depravity are thy rational 16 240 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. creatures capable of descending, when they turn away from the revelation of love and mercy ! ' As I looked upon a fakir seated by the Ganges, naked, haggard, worn to a skeleton, I thought I knew what it is to be damned." I would not have drawn these dark pictures if there were not light to be had on them. There is not only ruin but remedy. What is it? Do you recall the three forms of the great commission of the blessed Saviour? One is, "As ye go, heal the sick and tell them the kingdom of God is come unto you.'' Another is, " Go ye, teach all nations." And the third, " Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature." Philanthro- py, education, evangelism ; these are the Lord's methods for the world's uplift. We have them all in India. The missionaries were wise enough from the start to plant at the earliest day these three plants. I cannot tell you the results with fullness. Philanthropy — it is not simply medical work, but all philanthropy ; for the Lord not only healed the sick, he fed the hungry and cleansed the lepers and raised the dead. He " went about doing good." And that is what we attempt to do in Lidia and in every other well-ordered mission everywhere. In a marvelous way God has thrust great opportunities upon us in the late years by the hard fate of famine. I was there just as the famine was dying out. On my way out I saw at Suez the ship City of Everett, which went from San Francisco, carrying out three or four thousand tons of American wheat OUR MOST SUCCESSFUL MISSION. 241 and corn and beans for the relief of the famine. When it got to Calcutta Bishop Thoburn's great reputation throughout India — and the powers of India honor him as a veritable prophet of the living God in this generation — led to the handing over of hundreds of tons to our missionaries, and they dis- tributed them to the people. The large grains of Indian corn were unlike anything the people had seen ; and up and down the great central provinces of India, as they saw these big kernels and found out where they had come from and heard the story of this ship, they said, " It must be that Jesus is the great Giver." So they connected the food which saved their lives with America and with the Lord Jesus Christ. As a result of the famine, we had thrust upon our hands by parents, many of whom could not feed their children another week and many of whom would not feed them, more than two thousand of these orphans and other famine waifs. And that noble man of God, Rockwell Clancy (Julian Hawthorne, in the Cosmopolitan, calls him and his wife two rep- resentative, humble, self-denying missionaries of Jesus Christ), when the orphans began to throng at his door, knelt at midnight with his wife and prayed over it, and took a vow that they would not turn away a single famishing child : there were more than two thousand of them, and they had to send many of them to the mission stations all about India. So weak were a large number of them that one third died after coming to the missionaries ; but 242 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. of the others hundreds upon hundreds are now happy little saints of the living God. Education, that is the second thing. "Teach all nations." On the way out, in our discussions on shipboard, one of the missionaries of another Church, which has a different idea of missionary work, told us that in a large college, with six hundred students of high grade, of which he and seven more bachelor priests are at the head, he is not aware that in fif- teen years there has been a single convert. We do not believe, in our Church, that when the Lord Jesus called men into the ministry he meant that they should be simply and only schoolmasters. So our teaching is of another sort. In India our Church has worked on very different lines. Let me give you a romance more marvelous than any in the books, and yet every word of which is veracious history. About twenty-five years ago there was a young Methodist preacher in our Church, Jolm F. Goucher, who had been accus- tomed to pray daily for our missions. After a time he began to take up one each day of the week, and for some years made special prayer every Thursday for our missions in India. He became convinced that the great need of our work there was vernacular schools in the humblest villages, where the low-caste boys and girls should be taught, with Christian songs and prayers, the elements of education — ■ " boys and girls ! " — believing that God's unit of the Christian state is the Christian family. He set apart some money for that purpose, and had to beg his OUR MOST SUCCESSFUL MISSION. 243 way at first past two Church Boards to get the money accepted ; but he finally succeeded in planting over one hundred schools, and has sustained them for fifteen years at a cost of over a hundred thousand dollars; and here is the result! The presiding el- ders' reports show that the planting of these schools, flowering out into a first-class high school in one of the great cities, has resulted under the labors of pre- siding elders, pastors, teachers, local preachers, and workers of various degrees — who have been students in those schools — in more than twenty-seven thou- sand conversions in India ! The other educational work under the care of the Church is well graded and successful. From the lowest school up to the theological seminary it is permeated at every step with the spirit of religion. We have no six hundred students for fifteen years of whom none are con- verted. We often get nearly the whole school. " Go ye, preach ; " and not through these other ways alone: the direct results of our evangelistic labor amazed me and will probably amaze you. I have a task I cannot accomplish. Spoken words cannot give you what my eyes saw and my ears heard.* We went to a camp meeting at Hathras, near the foothills of the Himalayas, where for four days two District Conferences were held. There we met a native presiding elder, Hasan Raza Khan, originally a high-caste Mohammedan, with powers which *The facts concerning meetings at Nairn Tal were here introduced. See page 29. 244 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. would make him a most acceptable and delightful preacher to any congregation in America. They had a Woman's Conference and all sorts of meet- ings for two days. Being an old-time class leader I tried to find out whether these heathen converts were converted, and was very busy with that question. So I listened with an interpreter at my elbow, and I am bound to say that in no four days of my life at any camp meeting in America have I ever heard so many ser- mons and addresses and prayers and experiences relating to the personality of the Holy Ghost as a witnessing spirit to present salvation and as to the enduement of power for Christian service as I heard among those "raw heathen," as Lord Kinnairdcalled them, in India. Blessed be God for such heathen ! Then I came down farther ; but I cannot give you half of what is vividly before me ; I must give you some summary of the facts. Now let me make the most astonishing state- ment of progress in God's work on earth of which I have any personal knowledge. You can find it in the Minutes of the Central India Conference. Let us take the statistics of the year 1887, the year of the last official visitation from this country before my tour, made by Bishop Ninde, and compare them with those of the year I was there, 1898. In 1887 we had 3,305 probationers; eleven years later, 46,097. In 1887 we had 4,018 full members; now we have 31,866. The total number of our commu- nicants then was 7,323 ; now we have 77,C)6'^. That OUR MOST SUCCESSFUL MISSION. 245 is an increase of tenfold in eleven years. Then we had 96 churches ; now we have 233. In 1887 we had 313 Sunday schools ; now we have 2,485. Then we had 14,102 Sunday school scholars, and now we have 83,229. And all this in eleven years! I so- berly ask you if you can think of any figures begin- ning with thousands, where there has been such a percentage of increase in any mission of which we have any knowledge, or in any part of any country where Methodism has ever been planted. The in- crease from 7 to 70 is far easier than that from 7,000 to 70,000. After some thirty years of work we had the great record which made Dr. Curry de- clare India to be our greatest mission in his life- time. Now those thousands have been multiplied six, eight, ten, and even fourteen fold. These are the amazing figures gathered in that marvelous field. What are the needs of this Mission? The needs! I struck this morning, rising from my bed, on what seems to me a remarkable parallel. Great Britain is controlling India with less than eighty thousand soldiers. She keeps India disarmed and in subjec- tion and gives it the best government it has ever had by far. If the son of a lord is a judge in a court in any city of India and does not do fairly well it is quickly found out, and somebody else has the place. England means to administer justice. And this wonderful military and naval governing power holds these three hundred millions with less than eighty thousand soldiers from Great Britain. They raise 246 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. up an army of Sepoys or native soldiers who become faithful British soldiers. We now have in India just about as many soldiers in the army of the Lord Jesus Christ as Great Britain has soldiers with rifles on their shoulders. And among these we have three thousand five hundred and thirty-seven paid work- ers. These are the officers of our army. I read a well-considered editorial in one of the papers of India stating that when English officers, young men, the pride of noble homes, were fighting up in the mountain defiles leading to Afghanistan, these young officers were followed by those Sepoys with absolute devotion, for these reasons: the Se- poys know that the young English officers can be depended upon for two things — never to tell a lie, and to die at their posts. It may be extravagant praise, but Englishmen told me it was true ; they will tell the truth, the government gets the facts ; and every man will die at his post if need be. That makes possible the magnificent occupation of that vast stronghold of heathenism by Anglo-Saxon grit and intelligence and pluck. Rudyard Kipling had it right; "Sergeant What's-His-Name " de- serves the credit of the conquest in Egypt. Soldiers are made out of the mud by instruction and drill and contact with Anglo-Saxons. We want American officers in India, enough to be the brains and the inspiring force and the example to the thirty-three hundred native officers ; and among the thirty-three hundred such increase little by little in numbers and pluck and firmness and devotion to OUR MOST SUCCESSFUL MISSION. 247 Jesus Christ as will make them fit teachers of the sev- enty-seven thousand, and then of the seven hundred and seventy-seven thousand which twenty years of fair appreciation by our beloved Church of her stu- pendous opportunity in India would bring us. Sup- ply these needs, and I have no doubt that during the lives of my grandchildren we may have more Methodists in India than we now have in the United States. What do we need ? I have given you a little hint ; enough American brain and consecration and religious life to be the inspiration of this movement. We haven't it now. And now let me alarm you, as lam myself alarmed, by the statement that thirteen of our best missionary workers in northern India have been there more than thirty-five years each. I have a little picture of four of these workers who together have rendered one hundred and forty- three years of service there ! Thirteen are left. God wants them, and heaven waits for them, and they will soon be there. There is a gap that ought to be filled in the near to-morrow. The Church can- not afford to leave it vacant. We need simply enough American missionaries to be the leaders of the native host and their guides and inspirers ; and then enough of the native host, the workers, to be the inspiration and the guide of the hosts who are almost ready to come now to baptism. The num- bers preparing to come, with fair intelligence, to Christian baptism, abjuring their idols and accept- ing Jesus Christ, are now scores of thousands. 248 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. One presiding elder, a native Mohammedan, said, " I can get on my district in eighteen months fifty thousand to come to baptism if you can fur- nish us with ' holders-up,' " which means such plain, simple, native Christians as can be secured for thirty dollars a year each, or local preachers for fifty dol- lars, to teach them. They hate their idols. They cut off the lock of hair which they have cherished as a sign of idolatry. They come to baptism and learn the Creed and the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments, and we hold village prayers with them every night. It is not done indiscriminately. We have kept off more than ten thousand because we did not dare to baptize them without leaving some native teacher who shall teach them every week and tell them of Christian morals and sustain them in a hatred of idolatry; because if a village or half a village lapses from us it is worse than if we had not been there at all. As to the needs, you see them ; I need not talk about that. What is our asking? I need not name figures, Dr. Goucher will do that. But in short the asking is this, that you do not compel the mission- aries in your grandest mission to stand like a cor- don of police, with their faces and their batons to- ward a crowd ready to come to Jesus, holding them back, and saying, " We don't want you ! " That is what we ask. That simply shows you what we are doing. Our preachers line up and say in Confer- ence after Conference, " We cannot baptize those who are ready to come." OUR MOST SUCCESSFUL MISSION. 249 The figure is a fair one. Your missionaries, Bishop Thoburn among the rest, are obliged to do that very thing. Do you remember when he was elected missionary bishop how he came to the Con- ferences and churches and began to plead for India, and to say, " My dear friends, I soberly hope my- self to live to see the time when there will be ten thousand heathen brought to baptism in North India in a single year?" Do you remember how the most of us said, " It is the wild raving of a fa- natic?" And but few dared to say, " Mayhap it is the veritable word of a prophet of the living God." I am happy to say that I was among that number all along. Now we have had two years in the course of which we did baptize thirty-eight thousand two hundred and nineteen heathen. And I tell you, beloved, if this church had been ready to add fifteen per cent a year for the last two years to enlarge the American force a little, and more largely the native forces, we would be having now fifty thousand baptisms every year there. Do you want your missionaries simply to proclaim the Gospel, and then to stand like police to say, " Stand back, ye dusky millions, stand back !" But you will think I am an advocate and not a member of the jury. We are to vote on these appropriations and on those for the whole world. Ye angels of the living God, fly through the land and tell the Church what we imperatively need. I must not forget that I am a juryman and must presently join you in a verdict on India's needs. But I must 250 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. also be an advocate, for I myself have " an Advo- cate with the Father, even Jesus Christ the right- eous;" and as he stands between God and me, so in his name I stand to-day between him and three hundred millions of those for whom he died, and say to you, " Gentlemen of the jury, if you had seen what I have seen you would all be advocates." A BUGLE CALL. 251 CHAPTER XXIX. A Bogle Call. HE General Missionary Committee requested 1 me to prepare " an Appeal for Foreign Mis- sions." Such a presentation of the interests of the kingdom of our conquering Christ as that word suggests should not be necessary for those who will read this paper. It would seem that the cause should need no longer to be elaborately reasoned, but only briefly stated. Having recently returned from several months' travel through the heart of the heathen world I feel like springing to the frown- ing but crumbling ramparts of Hinduism and sum- moning the slumbering hosts of an army, already victorious in many places, to a charge all along the line. When, after much meditation, I sat down at my desk to begin this article, I reached for the Re- vised Version of the Bible and opened it; the first words my eyes rested upon were the parable of the mustard seed, which is " less than all the seeds that are upon the earth, yet when it is sown it groweth up and becometh greater than all the herbs, and putteth out great branches." These words suggest the fitness of the good seed of the word to grow amazingly anywhere. Only sow it ; it will make way for itself. 252 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. How vast the change from the time when Chris- tian England forbade Carey to land in British India to that in which Li Hung Chang converses freely with a Protestant bishop, and asks more mission- aries to be sent to China ; and from the pope's bull against Luther to the edicts of Roman Catho- lic presidents in Mexico and in South America pro- claiming and enforcing liberty of religious wor- ship, and expressing high appreciation of our schools ! " The Hermit Nation " of yesterday is not only wide open to the Gospel to-day, but thou- sands of Koreans have already been converted, and the work of evangelization is going on among them more easily and with vastly higher percentage of conversions every year than in any city in the United States, If the light which was centered in focal blaze for a whole week in the Mathewson Street Church, Providence, during the recent meeting of the Gen- eral Missionary Committee, could be similarly fo- cused in every one of our churches on the day of the missionary collection, our treasury would over- flow, and every mission we have in all the earth would have its resources multiplied and its largest possible success assured. Probably no other fifty men on earth could bring together such recent and full missionary information as the members of that great annual committee. They include all the bishops, the officers of the Missionary Society, four- teen delegates chosen by the General Conference and representing all the Annual Conferences, and A BUGLE CALL. 253 seven ministers and seven laymen selected by the Board of Managers, which meets every month in the year and gives constant attention to the ad- ministration of the appropriations, and to the con- dition of the missionary work at home and abroad. No field can be named which has not been visited by one or more of the bishops, and often by sev- eral of them, within one or two years. Six bishops made full and inspiring reports covering the work in nearly all of our foreign fields, and based upon their very recent official visitations : Warren, from South America; FitzGerald, from Mexico; Walden, from all our missions in Europe ; Joyce, from Ja- pan, Korea and China ; Hartzell, from Africa; and Foss, from India and Malaysia. The general ver- dict, voiced by all our Church papers, was that no previous meeting of the General Committee has ever enjoyed such a wide, full, elaborate, and in- spiring view of our whole foreign missionary work. The effect of these representations was manifest in the appropriations made. The percentage for the foreign work agreed upon at the opening of the session was larger than ever before, namely, fifty- seven per cent for foreign missions and forty-three per cent for home missions, and was still further increased after the whole list of missions, foreign and home, had been most carefully and patiently considered. The trumpet calls of God for " those who need us most " sounded so loudly in all ears that even the special pleaders for the home work consented to hold its appropriations a little within 254 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. the percentage at first fixed ; and the final adjust- ment, with general and cordial consent, fixed the appropriations so that they aggregated a little more than fifty-eight and a third per cent for the foreign work and a little less than forty-one and two thirds per cent for the home work. I would that some magic carpet might transport our fourteen thousand pastors to India for a few months' careful observation there. They would see, quickly after landing in Bombay, the " Burning Ghats," in which the Hindus place the bodies of their dead on great piles of dried wood, where they are reduced to ashes, while the suffocating smoke and stench wrap you round as you drive along the principal boulevard of the city ; and the " Towers of Silence," in which the Parsees expose their dead to the vultures, by which every shred of flesh is torn from the bones in a few moments. They would see, far north, at Naini Tal, the most beautiful of lakes, with our Hindu church at one end and our English- speaking church at the other, our girls' school far up the mountain on one side, and our boys' school on the other, and, from a near height, the majes- tic Himalayas, clad in perpetual ermine, with the Ganges bursting forth from the glacier on the side of the loftiest peak. They would see, far down upon the densely populous plain, the especially " sacred " city of Benares, where tens of thousands of religious devotees bathe every day in the Ganges, and drink for internal ablutions large draughts of its exces- sively filthy waters. They would see our six Con- A BUGLE CALL. 255 ferences and the Biennial Central Conference (which is a miniature delegated General Confer- ence), and would be delighted with the personal acquaintance of a large number of our three thousand native preachers and teachers, who would beg that their numbers as " holders up " might be increased, so as to make possible the bap- tism and proper care of fifty thousand heathen every year who are ready to abjure their idols and come to Jesus. They would see the Taj Mahal, by far the most beautiful tomb in the world, and the splendid deserted palaces of Shah Jahan, and would be still more moved by the sight of Christian orphanages, schools, and little mud churches, nurs- eries for royal infants, destined to bring to India glories such as Shah Jahan and all the grand mo- guls who "built like Titans and finished like jewel- ers," never dreamed of. They would find among our brothers and sisters in these mission fields faithful workers, worthy to be written into a new roll call of the heroes of the faith in a modern Eleventh of Hebrews. They would find, in Bareilly and Lucknow, in Cawnpore and Bombay, in Alla- habad and Moradabad, in Calcutta and Madras, in Rangoon and Singapore, and in many other places, work so successful that it has long since strung and tuned the harps and voices of the angelic host, and so bursting with promise that our measureless opportunities are our gravest embarrassment. They would return — the whole fourteen thousand of them — flaming heralds and impassioned advocates 17 256 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. of missionary work in the heathen world, among more than half the population of the globe, most of whom, at the very close of the nineteenth century, have never once heard the name of Jesus Christ. While in India I read, with no little emotion, a collection of short tracts written by tender-hearted and anxious missionaries of several branches of the Church, entitled The Awakening of India, express- ing their earnest desire for influences of the divine Spirit to secure greater revival power throughout that vast empire. Would that there might be a far more needed awakening of America to some adequate sense of the splendor of her present op- portunities for swift advances in the conquest of the heathen world ! O Zion ! " Arise and shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is ris- en upon thee." CHAPTER XXX. STATISTICS. 258 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. 2 o . 0) O 12 ro O 00 q\ to o CO O vO On 0\ On 0\ OSOO "M^OO N ro M 00 O. ~ — " C)" M O ro 00 On f*• O On N O « O O P) NO •J^ LTi HH On to ON r^NO ri CO M On oo" r-i ■-<■ Q- (s NO ro On ro O 00 -* O NO LTN O On CO ■^NO ro M •+ rj-NO lo M N M 00 CO lOOO ro O « M ro O ro ro -rf- ro M " O ro — ^ 2| i § s -C ^ — u o . be go E S £ 2 O O 3 CP 2 o o o o E U O o c ^ ''^ '■5 >. >> c/5 rt oi y ~ — W Ph C/D «a«a<: published in i8()q by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions states that " no compilation of the missionary statistics for India has been made since the tables of the December Conference were published in 1892. The numbers then given have been largely increased within recent years." INDEX. 261 INDEX. Agra, 38, 46. Allahabad, loi, 223. Azores, 7. Bangalore, 52. Banyan tree, 190. Baptisms, 40, 68, 91, 100, 227. Baptists, 185. Bareilly, 32. Beds, 23. Beggars, 102. Benares, 90, 237, 254. Bengal-Burma Conference, 86. B/taJans, 126. Bhalej, 51, 226. Blackstone, Wm. E., 167. Boils, 178. Boist, Maria, 68. Bombay Conference, 52. Bond, Mrs. T. T., 90. Borneo, 198, 200. Bowringpet, 55. Brahmanism, 183. British rule in India, 218, 245. Budden, Annie, 30. Buddhism, 183. Burma, 177, 182. Burning Ghats, 189, 254. Burt, Rev. William, D.D., 14. Butler, Rev. Wm., D.D., 66, in, 114. Butler, Mrs. Wm., 66. Camp meeting, Hathras, 35. Caste, 41, 60, 140, 181. Central India Conference, 98, 107, 118. Chinese, 201. Clwta Hazh'i^ 40, 150. Christian evidences, 220. Christmas, 87. City 0/ Everett^ famine relief steamer, 23, 240. Clancy, Rev. Rockwell, 159, 164, 241. Cobras, 193. Conversions, numbers of, 133, 227. " reality of, 36, 115, 229. Crows, 24, 178, 193. Curiosities, i8g. Curry, Rev. Daniel, D.D., 245. Curry, 174. Dandis, 28. Deewan Khass, 44, 50. Delhi, 38, 43. Devotees, 102, 224. District Conferences, 30, 38, 112. Durian, 192. Dyaks, 200. Earthquakes, 33, 88, 199, 210. Eclipse of sun, 99. Elephants, 195, 203. English, Fannie M., 105. Epworth League, 122. Famine waifs, 23, 68, 105, 241. Fatehganj, 32. Flying foxes, 91, 194. Franklin, Rev. Isaac, 159 Fruits, 135, 171, 176, 192, 203. Ganges, 238. General Missionary Committee, 233, 252. Gibraltar, 13. Goucher, Rev. John F., D.D., 6, 83, 129, 140, 169, 233, 242. Goucher schools, 129, 242. Grants-in-aid, 161. Hasan Raza Khan, 135, 159, 162, 243- Hathras camp meeting, 35. Havelock, Sir Henry, 91. Hawthorne, Julian, 94, 218, 241. Himalayas, 28. Hooghly River, 87. Humphrey, Rev. J. L., M.D., 104. Indian Ocean, 16. Indian Witness, 86. Inland Sea of Japan, 209. Jackals, 36. Janvier, Rev. Joel, 104. 262 FROM THE HIMALAYAS TO THE EQUATOR. Japan, 230. Jinrikisha, 175. Jordan, Joseph, 144. Joyce, Bishop I. W., 98, 100, 122. Judson, Rev. Adoniram, 184. Kali, 127. Kinnaird, Lord, 19, 234, 244. Kipling;, Rudyard, 246. Koh-i-noor, 45, 79. Kolar, 54. Laidlaw, Robert, 86. Landslide, 31. Lazarus, Dr. E. J., 90. Leuring, Rev. H. L. E., 199, 203. Lizards, 178. Madras, 71, 85. Malaysia, ig8. Mansell, Rev. W. A., 123. Medical work, 62. Mela, 35, ici, 223. Missionaries, houses of, 92, 148. " manner of life of, 147. " wives of, 34. " work of, 94. Missionary Episcopacy, 118. Moguls, 38, 41-45, 255. Monkeys, 24, 194. Nagasaki, 208. Nagoya, 210. Naini Tal, 27, 254. Native music, 127. Needs, 247. North India Conference, 103. Northwest India Conference, 96. Oldham, Rev. W. F., D.D., 200. Orphanages, 67, 71. Orphans, 95. Pacific Ocean, 212. Parker, Rev. E. W., D.D., 66, 123, 130, 136, 229. Parker, Mrs. E. W., 66. Peacock Throne, 44. Penang, 175. Philippines, 201. Pigeon orchid, 191. Plague, 5, 53, 172, 217. Poverty, 235, 236. Publishing House, 79. Fuukahs, 150. Railways, 23. " Raw heathen," 229. Red Sea, 16. Robinson, Rev. J. E., 86. Rome, 13. Rowe, Phoebe, 69. Rudisill, Rev. A. W., D.D., 71, 80. Saigon, 205. Self Support, 116, 153. Serpents, 33, 193. Servants, 149. Shah Jahan, 43, 48, 255. Shanghai, 207. Shellabear, Rev. W. G., 200. Singapore, 199, 202. Solomon, Rev. Abraham, 137. Soobooiiagam Ammal, 73. Southern Cross, 173. Statistics, 221, 244, 258, 260. Steele, Mrs. Daniel, 66. Stephens, Grace, 71. Storrs, Rev. R. S., D.D., 236. Suez Canal, 14. Taj Mahal, 38, 46, 255. Taylor, Bishop William, iii. Thoburn, Bishop J. M., 5, 17, 52, 53, 109, 114, 222, 234, 241, 249. Thoburn, Isabella, 91. Thomson, Bishop Edward, 239. Tokyo, 211. Tongas, 28. Torrid Zone, 168. Towers of Silence, 189, 254. Traveler's Tree, 191. Tupper, Samuel, 140. Vencatachellum, Mr. P., 76, 78. Viceroy of India, 169. Wallace, Alfred Russel, 192, 198. Warne, Rev. F. W., 123. Weather, 7, 53, 93, 147, 150, 170, 174, 207, 212. West, Rev. B. F., 201. Woman, condition of, 58, 236. " work of, 57. Woman's Foreign Missionary So- ciety, 32, 39, 65, 180. Yokohama, 210. Zahur ul Haqq, 137. Zenanas, 61, 74. Date Due mm PRINTED IN U. S. A. ! •