Assam

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Dec 24, 1903

THE nineteenth century was thirty-five years old when the intrepid Kincaid was treading the frontier jungle of Burma, in the hope of carrying the gospel message to the wild tribes of Assam. He was thwarted in this purpose, but a year later a little company of missionaries were towed up the great Bramaputra River, to Sadiya, to reach the Khamtis and Singphos. Wars, fevers, deaths, dispersions, and discouragements of every sort, continued even until now, have not prevented stout hearts from bearing the blessed message of the Prince of Peace to the millions of Assam who live in her hills and plains.

If one hungers for the romance of missions, or wishes inspiration to earnest effort, let him fix his gaze upon this frontier province of the great Indian empire. Behold four thousand redeemed ones among the blood-thirsty Garos, tamed by the Great Spirit from the fiercest savagedom, now making their mountains ring in praise to One who was sacrificed for all! Follow their own missionary to other and distant tribes, and from the few trophies he has already won, see the earnest of thousands to be gathered from among the numerous tribes. Look, and you will see rising from the family altars of four thousand Nagas the incense of prayer.

Among the hundreds of thousands of the immigrant population in the plains among the Assamese proper, and also among the representatives of the hill tribes living in the plains, many lower lights are burning.

The Assamese now have the entire Bible in their native tongue. The Garos are well supplied with literature, while beginnings have been made in other tongues sufficient to sow the seed for plenteous harvests. Prayer, pains, more missionaries and native workers, added to what we already have—all the sure rewards of faith-filled intercessions—furnish an outlook of surpassing promise.

—Baptist Missionary Magazine.