p. 15 | North India by S. A. Wellman

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 14, 1916

North India

By S. A. Wellman

RECENTLY I spent two or three weeks visiting our mission stations in north India—at Lucknow, Najibabad, Rai Bareli, and Chelusain in Garhwal. Near the latter place we visited another location where we have been offered a school and land for a mission station.

The young man who came into the truth from Hinduism in the Garhwal Industrial School is canvassing for Urdu and Hindi literature during his vacation, and is doing well. In fact, he has the best record of any man we have yet sent out, territory being considered. He attends the Lucknow training school, and has two years more there; then he expects to go back to work for his people.

This year we are very hopeful of having at least four pupils from north India in the Lucknow school. This will enable us to prepare workers who will be able to take their places with our European staff in leading out in the work. The training school is what we have long needed.

Brother and Sister R. P. Morris have been in Mussoorie since the middle of April, and Sisters Kurtz and Mitter have been at the Najibabad station. The work has progressed, though somewhat handicapped, and the village work is developing well among the heathen. In a village where less than a year ago there was much opposition to hearing of Christ, the prospects seem good for real results. Brother and Sister Morris are doing good work. Brother Morris has recently had an operation for appendicitis, but is now recovering.

At Rai Bareli Brother C. C. Belgrave is working hard to accomplish something definite in the town and surrounding villages. The situation so developed that we felt it was best to allow him to put up a mud schoolhouse and residence for the teacher in the village of Jharkrasi. This is nearly complete, and work begins there soon. Brother Belgrave is preaching, both in the villages and in the town, and some are interested. He hopes for results before the end of the year.

Brother and Sister Floyd Smith are settled in Garhwal now. Brethren Smith and Blue went with me on the trip to look up a new location. It is in a village named Bhagrukhal, sixteen miles from our present location. There is a fine community of villages near, and the people have asked us to take the school there. The school is conducted in a building that cost seven hundred rupees, and they offer us two acres of land in connection with the place. It is to be deeded to us free, and we are to have entire control of it, with the privilege of building a worker’s house so as to make a local station of it. With more than thirty villages within a mile or two of the place, it will make a good center, and these villages can be worked in the winter with added effectiveness, when the school at Chelusain must be closed on account of the cold, and the teachers and the European worker are free to work elsewhere. It is still undecided whether we take the school or not.

This trip was a trying one in some ways. We started in the early morning from our present school, and following a long spur of the ridge, dropped down to the river bottom. When we were two or three miles from the school, a heavy shower came on, and we sought shelter in an old building. Then we hastened on to another village, where unfortunately the people, being Brahmins, were afraid of sahibs and refused us shelter. So we had to find shelter under a mango tree when the next downpour came, and from that time till the end of the journey, about four in the afternoon, we were soaking wet.

When we reached a village near the new place, a Brahmin pundit who is in our school invited us to lunch in his place, and we had a chance to dry out some, the sun having come out about that time. Then we went over to the school. Business kept us there the next day till nearly ten-thirty, and we then started back, returning by the main road, but climbing to it up a spur which rose two or three thousand feet above us. We had barely reached the top when the monsoon storm broke again, and we fared worse than the day before. Not till we reached the school at Chelusain did we get rid of the water-soaked garments that had hung round us for over seven hours. But with the walking we did not suffer any ill effects, and were happy through it all. Needless to say, however, we welcomed dry clothes and a good bed that night.

On the return trip I had a good visit with Brother M. M. Mattison at Dehra Dun. He is making good progress with the language, and this fall will be prepared to carry full responsibilities in the work. When he passes his examinations, we shall have three persons in charge of stations who have a knowledge of the language. Brother and Sister Smith are busy studying Hindi in Garhwal, and I hope to see them pass the examinations next spring and join this number. I look forward to the future with courage; for to have workers who can, with the blessing of God, face the people and tell them the gospel in their mother tongue, will mean much. S. A. WELLMAN.