The Santal Mission in India
By W. A. Barlow
We have just started another branch of our industrial work, aided by the district board, by planting fruit and other trees along the government roads around Simultala, which employs quite a number of poor villagers. For this I am thankful to God. This work I have secured through the kindness of a physician and missionary to the Indians, who lives about sixteen miles from us, and is very friendly and kind to us. He takes all our difficult cases into his hospital, and has helped us in different ways in pushing our work. Last year we had only five papia fruit trees bearing, and this year we have nearly thirty bearing. For this again we thank our Heavenly Father. During the past year a poor Indian jogi, or hermit, found his way here while on his journey to the heights of the Himalaya hills to spend the rest of his life in “meditation and communion with God,” as he said. He has been reading the Bible more or less for forty years. He was formerly a school-teacher, and was educated in a missionary college near Calcutta. For the past twenty-five years he has lived a lonely life in the jungles, and this Simultala jungle life seems to have drawn him to us. He reads our books and papers very eagerly. He is waiting for Christ’s second coming. Yesterday he volunteered to go out with our Santal preacher and myself, to preach and sing the gospel. At the close of our service, a poor Roman Catholic came home with us, and united in our evening service, singing the Hindi bhajans (hymns), and to-day he has been busy painting our district bullock van. The jogi wishes to accompany us in camp this cold season in our evangelistic tour. He witnessed earnestly yesterday before a crowd of Hindus and others, and volunteered to buy a Hindi bhajan for a Brahman in the crowd. We sold two copies—one to a Brahman, and one to the village postmaster. Last night we were visited very late by the village watchman, bringing his little son, who had been stung by a scorpion, and was in great pain. I administered some remedies, encouraging them to pray to the great Healer; and this morning, when bringing back our lantern, he told us that his son was all right again. My son invited him to join in our morning service, and I was led to speak from John 3: 14-16.12This same man was near death’s door last year, and we carried him here on a bed, and gave him some water treatments, and through God’s blessing he is a fine, stalwart village watchman to-day, as strong as ever. During the past few months we have had the pleasure of having with us a God-sent Santal evangelist. He is the only one I know of among the Santals who knows and keeps the Sabbath. He has been helping me translate six of our new tracts from Hindi and Bengali into Santali, and I hope that thousands more will be led by the Holy Spirit into the truth, through the reading of these tracts, comparing the same with God’s Word, as I did. Brother Shaw has helped me to get six thousand printed—two thousand each of three kinds—“The Second Coming of Christ,” “Signs of Christ’s Coming,” and “The Drunkard’s Stomach.” Three more are translated, and ready for the press as soon as our own press is ready for work. This is one of the most powerful and practical ways by which we can reach the minds of our dear Santal brethren, and the missionaries also. Pray that God will make these people ready and willing to read and meditate concerning the important truths therein, as we send the tracts by post, and circulate them personally. About twenty-five thousand English and vernacular tracts have been circulated in this province during the past year, besides a few thousand Dutch papers, which I placed among the Boer prisoners in the different camps in northern India during July. I trust the Lord will bless his own Word to the Boers and others.