LZ UlCk INFORMATION SERIES AMERICAN BAPTIST BENGAL 1. The Field HE field of the Bengal Mission is in the Province of Bengal, and comprises the two districts, Midnapore and Balasore, the latter lying in the Orissa division of the province. This mission, for- merly the Free Baptist Mission, is now under the direction of the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society through the merging of the missionary work of Free Baptists and Baptists. The Midnapore district begins across the Hoogly River from Calcutta and extends nearly one hun- dred and fifty miles along the Bay of Bengal, to the south- west. A small portion lying along the Hoogly River, com- prising Tamluk, has been ceded to the Methodists as their ‘mission field. The Balasore district is south of the Midnapore district and extends about one hundred miles further south. A large part of the district west of Balasore, known as the Mohurbunge, also properly belongs to this division, as our missionaries tour through it, and no other mission is working the territory, save at one remote point. The whole area consists of more than seven thousand square miles, with a population considerably exceeding four millions. Midnapore and Balasore, in their respective districts, are the largest cities, of about 40,000 and 30,000 inhabitants respec- tively. Small villages average about three to each two square miles, with more than 500 inhabitants to each square ‘mile. Rice is the main crop raised, although peas, beans, sweet potatoes, bananas, mangoes, cotton, sugar cane, tobacco and oil seeds are also cultivated. Tropical conditions pre- vail, as the northern boundary of the field is but twenty-two degrees north of the equator. 2. The People The four millions of population are chiefly Hindus, with a large admixture of Mohammedans, especially in the Mid- napore district. In the northwest, chiefly among the hills, is an aboriginal tribe, the Santals, numbering about 150,000. Four languages are spoken, Bengali in the Midnapore dis- trict, Oriya in the Balasore district and the Mohurbunge, Hindi largely by the Mohammedans and Santali by the San- tals. The work of the mission is conducted, however, almost exclusively through the Bengali in the north and the Oriya in the south. Even the Santals are reached through the Bengali, as the government requires them to receive all school instruction in Bengali. Caste restrictions are rigor- ously observed. Women are largely secluded. Little girls are betrothed and married and sometimes widowed before entering their teens. Society is honeycombed with super- stition and immorality. 3. Beginnings of Mission Work The mission was opened in 1835. Rev. Amos Sutton, a missionary of the English Baptists at Puri, near Cuttack, about 200 miles southwest of Calcutta, had married the widow of James Colman, one of Adoniram Judson’s early associates in Burma. Mr. and Mrs. Sutton were greatly burdened for the millions of heathen souls about them and desired helpers. Mrs. Sutton, an American Baptist, supposed her own people had all they could care for in maintaining the mission in Burma, but she thought that possibly the Free Baptists might be enlisted in missionary enterprise. She suggested this to her husband. He wrote a letter, addressed to Free Baptists, designed for publication in the Morning Star, but neither he nor his wife knew the address of this paper. Con- sequently the letter was pigeon-holed, and lay, at length forgotten, for several months, until a day when a package sent out from England was discovered to have, as one of its wrappings, an old copy of the Morning Star. Here was the desired address, The letter was quickly drawn from its pigeon-hole and despatched across the sea. That letter was printed in the Morning Star April 13, 1832. As a result, in the following January the Free Will Baptist Foreign Mission Society was organized; and in 1834, when Mr. and Mrs. Sutton left India on furlough, they came to America. Fora year Mr. Sutton served as the corresponding secretary of the new society, and a fund of nearly $3,000 was raised. While serving in this capacity, Mr. Sutton addressed his brethren of the Baptist churches, and won their support also for the work in India, so that when he and his wife sailed from Boston in September, 1835, there sailed with them Rev. and Mrs. Jeremiah Phillips and Rev. and Mrs. Eli Noyes, representing Free Baptists, and Rev. and Mrs. Samuel Stearns Day, representing Baptists, the latter to begin that famous and wondrously successful work among the Telugus of South India. In the beginning, therefore, Baptist and Free Baptist missionary work in India was indissolubly linked through an English Baptist and his American wife and a chain of circumstances, which cannot be regarded as fortuitous, but must be recognized as providential. 4. The Stations At Midnapore, seventy miles west of Calcutta, in addition to regular evangelistic and zenana work, a boys’ school, a girls’ school and a Bible school, for the training of native preachers, are maintained. Bhimpore, twenty miles northwest of Midnapore, is a station for Santals. Besides schools for boys and girls and much outstation work, there is the Sterling Memorial Hospital. Khargpur is an important railroad town rapidly growing. An English church for Eurasians is prosperous, and the work for natives, who come in large numbers from various partsof India, is particularly promising, because the people so largely break loose from the fetters of caste in their new surroundings. Contai, for some time under an efficient native superin- tendent, includes evangelistic and educational work, and also maintains a dispensary. Jellasore, once the residence of a missionary, is now the center of several village schools and some outstation work. Santipore has schools for boys and girls, an industrial school where weaving, carpentry and iron work are taught, _a dispensary, a native village founded on socialistic principles and extensive evangelistic features. Balasore is the seat of a large boys’ high school, an indus- trial school giving instruction in gardening, carpentry, iron work, book-binding and shoe-making, a large kindergarten, primary grade schools for both boys and girls, a teachers’ training school, orphanages for both boys and girls, a woman’s hospital and dispensary, a widows’ home, two bookrooms and strong evangelistic work. Bhadrak is without a missionary at present; its work is confined chiefly to a primary school and the itinerating efforts of native Bible women and preachers. Chandbali, also without a missionary, is under native supervision. The churches have a membership of about 1,500; there are many trustworthy native workers; there are several out- stations in which churches and schools are maintained; several important centers should soon be occupied by mis- sionary families. Three have already been recommended by the mission committee to be occupied as soon as present stations have been adequately manned. Note. All contributions for the work of the Bengal Mis- sion, whether from Baptist or Free Baptist churches, should be sent to the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society. Contributions for the work of the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society may be sent to any of the District Secretaries, or to the Treasurer, Ford Building, Boston. Address _ the Literature Department, American Baptist Foreign Mission Society, Ford Building, Boston, for the following: — Extra copies of this leaflet. Price per doz., 5 cents; per hundred, 25 cents. ** Missions in Bengal,’’ an historical sketch. Price, 10 cents. Catalog of Publications. Free. The Handbook of the Foreign Mission Society. Price, 20 cents. Annual Report of the Foreign Mission Society. Free, on receipt of postage. 976-1 Ed. 5 M. Dec., tort.