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 | THANKOFFERING Day 
 ViKARABAD 
 
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 PRICE FOUR CENTS 
 
 Woman's Foreign Missionary, Society 
 Methodist Episcopal Church 
 Publication Office. Boston, Mass. 
 
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 THANK-OFFERING DAY | 
 | IN VIKARABAD - 
 
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 AST Sunday was a great day 
 
 in Vikarabad. If you could 
 | have seen the shining faces 
 and heard the jubilant voices 
 of the people as they left the 
 church at dusk you would — 
 have wondered whether it was a wedding, 
 a Christmas tree or some other gala day. 
 Had you inquired, even the youngest 
 child would have told you joyfully that 
 it was our annual Sunday School Thank- 
 Offering Day, to which they look forward 
 and for which they plan for weeks ahead. 
 
 Last year we had the goal of Rs. 300 
 ($100) and raised Rs. 460. Each year 
 we have been putting the goal forward a 
 little. That is all right in good years, but 
 in times like the present we moved it 
 up to Rs. 500 with great trepidation. 
 Our people are having a very hard time. 
 Prices have gone up until now the ordi- 
 nary foodstuffs are four or five times 
 
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what they should be. The wages and 
 salaries, on the other hand, remain the 
 same or, in the case of mission agents, 
 have sometimes decreased on account of 
 the low rate of exchange. Famine, pesti- 
 lence and deadly fevers have stalked 
 through the land throughout the past 
 year. Even now cholera is in our midst, 
 claiming its victims and casting a pall of 
 sorrow and of extreme anxiety over us all 
 the time. A mile away, plague and 
 cholera are vying with each other in 
 claiming as victims the people of that 
 village. We missionaries have had to 
 lay aside all other work, no matter how 
 important, to fight disease away from our 
 midst, and we could give very little help 
 in planning and finding work for the 
 children to do to earn money for the 
 Thank-Offering. So the initiative came 
 largely from the Indian people them- 
 selves. 
 The congregation did not wait that 
 day for the second bell before they 
 started to church. The place was soon 
 packed with happy, eager folks who 
 wanted to render thanks unto the Lord 
 for all his benefits unto them. The order 
 of the day is always the reports of the 
 classes interspersed with some special 
 music, recitations, etc. There are twenty- 
 eight classes, so the program could not be 
 
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very long. The older girls sang in parts 
 the English song, “He will hold me fast,”’ 
 and it was beautiful. The primary class 
 also sang in English as a solo and chorus, 
 ‘Jesus loves me, this I know,’ and 
 brought much credit to their teacher. 
 This primary class reported first, 
 bringing their money and two kids. The 
 two assistants had sewed, crocheted and 
 given of their very meager pocket money, 
 and the little tots had brought their 
 coppers until they had a goodly sum. 
 The money was put in the brass basin 
 and the goats were tied to the altar rail, 
 but being unaccustomed to such sur- 
 roundings one kid began to bleat wildly 
 and the other proceeded to chew the 
 table cover. However, they were allowed 
 to remain until the audience applauded 
 some number. This scared the goats 
 until they almost pulled the altar rail 
 down; then they were tied over in the 
 corner. Here, too, they made such a 
 racket that finally, like Mary’s little 
 lamb, they were entirely expelled. The 
 next day they were sold for seven rupees. 
 The boys’ school had earned some 
 money by field work, while the girls 
 and women had done a lot of sewing. The 
 sewing machines must certainly have 
 been glad when Sunday came, for day 
 and night the women and older girls 
 
 4 
 
kept them going, making shirts, children’s 
 dresses, etc. For the work and thread on 
 a man’s shirt they received nine cents, 
 and half that for a child’s dress. So you 
 see it takes several garments to make 
 much of a gift for the Thank-Offering. 
 But in this way they earned more than 
 ten dollars. The girls did a lot of sewing 
 for the hospital which brought them a 
 little over five dollars. 
 
 Masons and other workmen had been 
 working two hours overtime each day 
 and definitely pledging all that extra 
 money to God. And not only did they 
 ' want to give liberally, but they talked 
 Thank-Offering to every one and got even 
 non-Christians eager to give. And our 
 old bullock, that had for fifteen years 
 carried the gospel messengers to all the 
 villages around and was never known to 
 shirk a load or have a bad habit, died a 
 few days before and sent the price of his 
 hide to help swell the fund. The working 
 men’s class had the largest collection, 
 about sixty-five rupees, and it repre- 
 sented a great deal of self-denial. In fact, 
 sacrifice was written in large letters on 
 many of the gifts that day. 
 
 The spirit of the giving was illustrated 
 by a poor woman who works for her 
 board. She is dressed in more ragged 
 rags than you can imagine. She never 
 
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knows what it is to have a copper coin 
 in her hands. But she went to her Sunday 
 School teacher and said, ‘‘Amma, I want 
 to give something to the collection. I 
 have no money, but to-morrow is Sunday, 
 so I shall not have to work hard. Please — 
 take my allowance of grain and sell it and 
 put the money in our class collection. I 
 can do without food for one day.” I 
 might add that, knowing nothing of the 
 above, I called the woman and offered 
 to pay her a day’s wage (three and a half 
 cents) if she would stay with some chil- 
 dren in the hospital that night, so she 
 was able to give that money instead of 
 her food. xe 
 
 Another woman has recently passed 
 through deep sorrow. Cholera attacked 
 three of her children and she lost a lad of 
 eleven years. But because the other two 
 recovered she sent a month’s wage, 
 although they are poor and have a large 
 family. Last week Dr. Linn’s baby girl 
 was desperately sick. For two days we 
 feared for her life. The hospital servants 
 and employees had a prayer meeting and 
 ‘promised Thank-Offerings if. the baby 
 recovered. She got well and the people 
 brought their tokens of gratitude. | 
 
 Two of the special numbers on the 
 program were solos by a visiting Indian 
 brother. He had some sort of instrument 
 
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to accompany his singing, which resem- 
 bled a fog horn more than anything else 
 I can think of. When they turned it on it 
 kept blowing the same tone with the 
 same fierceness all the time, while the 
 man in his weak way sang all around it, 
 up and down, under and over, but was 
 unable to faze its roar in the least. It 
 certainly outdid anything I ever heard, 
 but alittle of that kind goes a long 
 
 way. 
 
 After the classes had all reported there 
 was an opportunity for others to put in 
 their gifts and tell the cause of their grati- 
 tude. One case that particularly touched 
 me was that of a little boy who is just 
 now convalescing from an attack of 
 cholera. He begged an older boy to put 
 two annas (three and one-half cents) in 
 as his Thank-Offering, saying that just 
 as soon as he is strong enough he will 
 work hard and pay back the loan. A 
 village woman brought a chicken which 
 some one had sent because she had found 
 a lost article. I had the savings bank of 
 our grandmothers—an old teapot — 
 full of papers and money. Much of its 
 contents had been sent by those who were 
 once in our Sunday School and although 
 now far away they still wish to have a 
 part with us. There were messages, 
 money and pledges. Another gift was 
 
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that of four wooden country cots which 
 ought to bring ten rupees, anyway. 
 
 There is so much I cannot tell you all 
 about it, but it was a wonderful time. 
 And what about the total? Did we reach 
 the goal? Yes, and much more, for the 
 gifts that day amounted to more than 
 Rs. 800 and others are still coming in. 
 There will be at least Rs. 850 in the end. 
 And the Indian people themselves gave 
 about Rs. 600 of that amount. When the 
 total was announced their joy knew no 
 bounds and the only way their applause 
 could be stopped was by starting the 
 doxology. They joined in it heartily and 
 as soon as the benediction had been said 
 there was a jubilant roar of voices as each 
 to the other expressed his joy over the 
 result. 
 
 And what do you suppose they were 
 saying as they left the church? It was, 
 “We must set the goal at Rs. 1000 next 
 year!’? It seems an impossibility, but 
 who would have believed that they could 
 pass the goal this year? We shall see!