The North India Mission by S. A. Wellman

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 4, 1911

The North India Mission

By S. A. Wellman

S. A. WELLMAN

In the partial organization of the India Union Mission in October, 1910, the northern portion of the peninsula of Hindustan was set off as the North India Mission of Seventh-day Adventists. This extends over a territory a thousand miles in width from east to west, and fully as far from north to south. Within its boundaries is a population larger than that of all the United States and its possessions.

For many years other missions have been operating in these portions of India. A great work has been accomplished by them. Schools have been established, and young men and women have been educated and sent forth into the villages to teach the people, so that to-day many thousands are rejoicing in a knowledge of their Lord. Yet what are these compared with the millions who still sit in darkness?

Something over five years ago Brother and Sister L. J. Burgess took up work among the Hindustani-speaking people in the United Provinces. Their work in obtaining a command of the language has been wonderfully blessed, as have been also their efforts in the production and spread of our literature. A number of tracts and small pamphlets has been issued in Hindi, Hindustani, and Roman Urdu. These have found honest hearts in various parts of this province and up in the Punjab. More inquiries have come, and more pleas for light have been made, than have been possible to answer. The working force has been, and still is, so small as to make it an impossibility to answer the earnest pleadings for help which have come from various quarters. The best that could be done was to send literature, where we had it, to meet the need.

At the present time the small working force in the Hindustani tongue is of necessity confining its efforts to the United Provinces and to very small sections of them. Stations have been started at Lucknow, at Najibabad, and in the Garhwal district, and a measure of success has attended the work in all these places.

Lucknow

Here at the headquarters of our work in India, Brother and Sister Burgess have worked winters while down from the hill station in Garhwal, and have found a number interested in present truth. Also, during their winters here they have devoted much time to the translation and printing of more of our literature in Hindi and Urdu.

One interesting case is that of a Mohammedan gentleman, who was editor of a vernacular newspaper. On account of writings in his paper which were deemed seditious by the government, he spent several years in the penitentiary, being released a year short of his time because of good behavior. While in prison, he became much interested in the Bible, and read it through several times. On his release the police, as they often have a habit of doing in this country, drove him from place to place. In these wanderings he came to our mission, hungry, discouraged, and about to end his life. Brother Burgess studied the Bible with him, he in turn working on the former's translations.

Last spring when Brother and Sister Burgess left for the hills, this gentleman was reading and studying “Great Controversy,” being greatly moved by the truths which it teaches. At the same time he was translating a new version of the Gospels with a committee of missionaries in Lucknow. On our return to Lucknow from the hills in October, what was the surprise of all to find that he had translated the whole of “Great Controversy” into Urdu during the summer. At present he has the subject of the state of the dead under consideration. He is educated in Hindustani, English, Hindi, Arabic, Greek, Persian, and Hebrew. He investigates everything carefully, and spends much time and effort on his work. This case is an example of the slow way in which many in this country move toward new ideas and new truths. Remember this man before God, that he may be genuinely converted, and know and accept the whole truth.

A Sister Chilton, who was a Church Missionary Society worker, and who accepted the message at the sanitarium about two years ago, is doing zenana work among the higher circles of Indian people. Also, a day-school will be started this year in charge of one of our native workers and his wife. Yet this is but a meager beginning in this, one of five great cities of the United Provinces. And around these are the thousands of country villages and smaller cities which must also receive the last message of mercy.

Lucknow.