The Marathi Country, India
By GEO. F. ENOCH
The problems which confront pioneer workers in heathen lands are many and varied. Among these the new worker finds that of his relation to other missions and mission workers. We recognize as from God the great world-wide advance into the unevangelized lands beginning with the time of Carey. God has sent out into these dark places true-hearted, loyal soldiers of the cross, who have successfully planted the banner of Jesus at great sacrifice. No more delicate question faces our workers than that of our relation to this work already started. Again, it is manifestly impossible to carry forward work along the same lines in heathen countries as in Christian lands. The preacher who depends on the notes on doctrinal subjects which he has been using for years would find himself dumb before a heathen audience. Our workers in these lands must blaze out a new trail, and should have the prayers and sympathy of all in the home land. Not Where Christ Was Named
After careful consideration our India committee decided that in the Marathi country some unoccupied field should be selected, where the resources of the third angel’s message could be measured up against raw heathenism, there forming a center from which the light could shine forth into all the Marathi country. “Yea, making it my aim [being ambitious] so to preach the gospel, not where Christ was already named, that I might not build upon another man’s foundation; but, as it is written, They shall see, to whom no tidings of him came, and they who have not heard shall understand.” Rom. 15:20, 21, A. R. V. Prospecting for a Location
In carrying out this plan, the preliminary work was left to the writer. Later, Elder J. S. James and Dr. H. C. Menkel joined in a trip through the section which seemed most favorable. A little later our committee selected the field. We had many interesting experiences during these prospecting tours. In one village during our customary short service, in which I was assisted by our native evangelist, we were interrupted by the inquiry, “Does this Jesus live in Poona?” Further inquiry proved that those people in all their lives had never heard of Jesus or Christians. No Christian had ever before visited their village. This experience was repeated again and again. At another important town we were waited on by a deputation representing the Mahar caste, asking us to start a school for their boys. They promised to build us a schoolhouse, give free a house for the master, and allow Mang boys, a lower caste, to sit with their boys. From these two castes the majority of the Christians of the Marathi country have come. “Kindly grant our petition; for no one takes an interest in us, no one cares for us,” were their parting words. We have no desire to represent these people as waiting for Christianity; for they are not. This territory is a stronghold of Hinduism. Panderpur, the largest town in the territory, with a population of twenty-three thousand, is rightly called the Benares of western India. At the time of our visit some eighty thousand pilgrims were attending a religious festival there. But their great need appeals to us; for they are without hope and without God in the world. You will find the territory selected between the Bhima River and the Western Ghats, or mountains. There is here an unoccupied field about one hundred miles long and from forty to eighty miles wide. Roughly speaking, it has a population of about seven hundred thousand, living in about eight hundred fifty villages. We have entered the northern part of this field. For the most part the country is semiarid, and except along the river-banks, crops are uncertain. The people live almost constantly under the shadow of threatened famine, but somehow they manage to pull through year after year. At one point north of the Nira River there is a large canal, which makes the crops certain there. As our work develops, we should have a foothold on this canal. We entered Indapur in the northern portion of this territory on February 1. Indapur is a town with a population of about six thousand, the county-seat of a taluka, or county, of the same name. This taluka has a population of about seventy thousand, living in nearly one hundred villages. We earnestly request an interest in your prayers in behalf of this new work. Mr. and Mrs. A. G. Kelsey are busy in Poona studying Marathi, and will be able to join us as soon as funds for our buildings arrive.