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What a Brahman Beggar Can Do in India

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 18, 1915

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 92, No. 57.

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What a Brahman Beggar Can Do in India

By M. D. WOOD

M. D. WOOD
A FEW weeks ago one of our masters [teachers] reported that the people of a near-by village were calling for a master and a school. So I sent the master back to confirm their former statement. They said that they would gladly furnish a room and a large number of pupils for the school.
This made us glad, and we sent the man to open the school. For a few weeks he had a good time teaching the children their letters and telling them Bible stories. They seemed delighted to think they were going to learn to read.
A Sabbath school was also opened, and last Sabbath they gave a small bag of rice and a potful of milk as an offering. But today all is changed. The master just came to my office and said that yesterday a Brahman beggar visited the village, as usual, to collect grain from the people, and hearing that a school had been opened, inquired about the man in charge. They told the Brahman that the master seemed like a good man and had his heart in his work.
Then he asked what the master told them, and they said, “Beautiful stories of Joseph and Jesus.” “Why,” said he, “don’t you know he is sent here by the padice sahib [missionary], and his object is to make you all Christians, and you will all be defiled?” Hearing this, they were all frightened, and said they would not have the school any longer. So today the master returned heavy-hearted and disappointed.
You say, Is there no way to show these people their error, and that education is better than ignorance?—No, not as long as that Brahman beggar visits that village for his daily dole; and no one can stop his visits as long as the people believe in him. In that village that Brahman is esteemed a holy man; and as the villagers prefer to listen to him and feed him rather than have their children educated, we are powerless to help them, except through our medical work and preaching in their streets. Thus you see some of the difficulties we meet in the work here.